The Reading List

1. Sholette, Gregory, Dark Matter, Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture, PlutoPress, 2011

Dark Matter by Gregory Sholette maps out a dense compendium of historical and current critical creative responses to our political landscape. As part of the collective PAD/D - Political Art Documentation and Distribution (1980-1986), Sholette spent much of the 80s actively archiving this Dark Matter. Placing his personal experiences within a larger historical context, Sholette sheds light on an exciting history of thriving and nebulous creative practices.

The book outlines how the role of artists as a creative class are inextricably linked to the post-fordist neoliberal political climate. "It is difficult to ignore the fact that unorthodox cultural labor practices are a central metaphor within the orthodoxy of the new economy and the artist has become a virtual fetish of this creative production." (p. 38) A perceived freedom in work structures leads to an acceptance of exploitative working conditions and unmet basic needs, such as health insurance. The book offers a compelling assessment of the rise of Enterprise Culture that I found insightful to understanding the greater structures that frame my own practice within the creative industrial complex. Being 'qualified' leaves graduates in a precarious financial situation, appearing to "reflect the ultra-competitive rules of business, as opposed to the collaborative networking of culture." (p.117) Careerist attitudes are institutionalized as rising throngs of artists and designers compete to pay off their student debts.

Sholette does not hide his disdain for the mainstream art world giving several scathing (and entertaining) critiques, for example: "Animal, vegetable, mineral: like a steady flock of coarse penitents, the more profane in outer appearance, the greater the artistic yield. For there seems to be one constant leveling everything entering this global cultural matrix: faith in the institutional art world's ability to drag some aesthetic meaning out like a confession from any object, person or situation." (p.122) Although the 'institutional art world' holds a large financial share in creative capital, is it not a self-serving industry of little interest or relevance to anyone outside the 'club'?

One of the more well-known groups that Sholette mentions is the feminist art group Guerrilla Girls who "can be described as an economic art lobby made up of small cultural manufacturers seeking a greater share of a given market." (p.59) By creating disruptive interventions and informed publications such as The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art they raise awareness and create a voice for female artists in "one of the last unregulated industries." (p. 59, Sholette quoting Guerrilla Girl "Frida Kahlo"). I am a big fan of their work, and think it represents an important milestone in challenging dominant art histories and current practices - but their critiques specifically target the art industry, including institutions, historians, critics and galleries.



Beyond groups that are critical of their own immediate creative communities, what I find most compelling about the book are the specific examples of counter cultural groups and activities that give a voice to greater social, economic and environmental injustices, working towards instigating justice in each of these areas. As such, it's a great resource for charting how many 'dark matter' artists have created politically and culturally relevant work that resonate beyond any measure of monetary value.

With the rise of the web a new tool for activism and creative energy emerged, subverting the streams of information networks in the form of Tactical Media. "TM counts on the ability of this viral communicability to thicken in connectivity and to seek out other, similar pathogens, nomadic swarms, and ephemeral counter-networks. It is within the evanescent realm of cyberspace that this image of distributed collectivism is most clearly made manifest. Gliding peripatetically through the digital ether, leisure and work, resistance and play, seem to blur into each other." (p.149) One of the most prominent TM interventions is perhaps the Yes Men's staging of Dow Chemical's "official" apology on the BBC for its negligent conduct in the Bhopal catastrophe.

This prank was an important achievement for several reasons. It highlighted the ongoing human rights violations being perpetrated in Bhopal, putting pressure on Dow Chemicals to take responsibility for their actions. It forced the mainstream media to talk about Bhopal and questions Dow Chemical's integrity. It also showed how the internet enables an illusion of legitimacy, and how easily the seemingly impenetrable authority of mainstream media can be challenged and subverted.



Sholette also situates emerging trends of 'parafiction'[pdf] and mockstitutions as often collaborative endeavors that simultaneously feign the authority of an institution while functioning as counter-institutional criticism. "When viewed as an aggregate phenomenon, the most impressive aspect of these informally organised mockstitutions is the degree to which they breath vitality back into the corpse of civic society and radical politics, strategically occupying the cast off remains of a now archaic liberal public sphere through acts of puckish necromancy." (p.170) Sholette conducts a survey that attempts to quantify these ephemeral creative practices and where they sit on a sliding scale between 'art world' and 'activism'. Although I found his assessments of the data unnecessary to the book as a whole, the data is an empowering aggregator that offers a valuable insight into the range of practitioners who do interesting and relevant work. In this way, Dark Matter creates an umbrella term that makes visible seemingly 'disjointed acts of insubordination', presenting them as a lineage of a cultural movement that is larger than a sum of its parts.

Without wanting to sound depressingly defeatist, a part of me feels like history repeats itself and corporations and governments still very clearly perform social, economic and environmental atrocities without being held accountable beyond occasional media hype. Increased visibility has also lead to increased apathy and we continue to accept privatization and de-regulation. Perhaps this wave of public amnesia will finally eat itself as we rush towards global financial collapse and scramble to define what a post-"free market" world looks like.

An informative and thought-provoking read, it is also enjoyable thanks to Sholette's lyrical use of language that flows through the book, as previewed in the quotes chosen for this review. It's an inspirational read that I greatly recommend to anyone interested in understanding how the arts and politics have affected each other and society in the last 40 years.

Results from Sholette's Survey:
You can download the PDF from the website darkmatterarchives.net




Some groups and works mentioned throughout the book:

institute for applied autonomy | european institute for progressive cultural policies |
Art and Revolution by Gerald Raunig | Claire Pentacost | Paper Tiger Television | Lucy Lippard | Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination | antfarm | The Yes Men | Critical Art Ensemble | REPOhistory | Hans Haacke | Leon Golub| Martha Rosler | ART.e - Loraine Leeson + peter dunn




First published: 20|07|2011
Edited: 01|08|2011 & 08|08|2011 (spelling)

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