SEMINAR DOCUMENTATION /  TOWARDS A FUTURE GLOSSARY: A FOR ABILITY, T FOR TRUST (ENG)

DAY 1 – PUBLIC PERSPECTIVE / USER PERSPECTIVE

The formats of contemporary art institutions are lumbered with a number of serious shortcomings: exaggeration, extravagance, competitiveness, elitism, overproduction, pomposity and wastefulness. As opposed to this, the practices of artists engaged in generating social change are focused on daily chores, unheroic and unspectacular and not always resulting in a tangible work of art, often escaping the institutional radar; migrating – whether of their own desire or due to necessity – beyond the art world. When dealing with the pitfalls of contemporary art, we must bear in mind the freedom of art, including the freedom to cease being what it is supposed to be. Sometimes this is related to returning to more compromised or historically marginalised forms such as propaganda. After all, every work that persuades us of something, be it a form of aesthetics, an opinion, a pleasure or an unpleasurable experience is a form of propaganda. Today more than ever before, we need the art of propaganda to act on behalf of minority rights, women’s reproductive rights and the well-being of our natural environment and other species. The extravagant costume of contemporary art often constrains movement and impedes the ability to deliver a well-aimed blow.