ALADDIN’S LAMP AND ART AFTER THE END OF THE HOLOCENE BY SEBASTIAN CICHOCKI
ONLINE CONTRIBUTION / TOWARDS A FUTURE GLOSSARY: A FOR ABILITY, T FOR TRUST
One of the classics of conceptual art, the Uruguayan artist of German origins Luis Camnitzer, a teacher and writer on education, likened the art world to an Aladdin’s lamps storage.We 1 collect, conserve and admire “vessels”, we view them in museums, contemplate their ornaments and forms. We can write the history of these objects, name the styles and tendencies. But what really interests us is the genie trapped inside a lamp or a bottle; we believe he is there with his superpowers. We have created a very sophisticated system of sustaining the belief in the existence of this spirit: museum edifices, frames and plinths, books and catalogues, specialist language, the cult of “geniuses”. This system may be extremely costly and energy-intensive. What’s more, it requires specialist knowledge and (fittingly for a cult) an appropriate degree of initiation. Art would therefore be something of “handicraft+”, although it is difficult to determine, without sliding into esotericism, what hides behind the mysterious “plus”.
CREDIT
Sebastian Cichocki