Useful and
moralistic
Lars Vilks
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Art is by tradition seen as autonomous and useless. These two charecteristics
are related. The autonomy is identified in the aesthetic experience, which
is useless. But it is not completely true. The aesthetic experience is
connected to a spiritual communication, a mystical character of art, useful
in a deeper sense. These ideas, though not completely dead, are, of course,
to be found in the Romantic and Modernist era. Moving towards the contemporary
scene, the idea of art will get at the same time easier and more complicated.
Art has been
recognized through the aesthetics. But since the breakthrough of the institutional
theory ("everything can be art") it has in a sense lost its
identity. One can say that art is recognized as art because it is art
(and this may then be a fact conferred by the artworld). But there are
more to point out. Contemporary art, obviously, is dealing with the social,
a content based on social matters. It is a decisive turning point: from
the sacred form to a content connected with the social. This will bring
about some rather new issues. One of them is about the usefulness of art.
What could then art be good for? Should it serve the social, take moralistic
standpoints? This is a difficult problem as art, by a strong tradition,
is not very well off with political correctness. Rather the mock with
important issues, rather surprising and provocing statements. On the other
hand, using these methods, art moves easily into being too ironic or even
inte satire. That is just too simple. So much art today is dealing with
an irony being not ironic. That should mean that the issue of irony keeps
a low level: could be, could not be.
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I think the
gutengut working area fits into this description of the contemporary scene.
Their projects is often - more or less - social issues, and they are hardly
acting politically correct. In their earlier works, especially two projects
made in Berlin in 1999 and 2000, their interest seem concentrated on the
artist as entrepreneur, art corresponding and partly mocking the ideals
of business and management. But it is still a hidden irony, not taking
any moralistic standpoints. In fact it seems to be a description of their
own way of working, totally identifying themselves with the world of business,
companies and teamwork. Normally their works are cooperational, all of
the four members making the projects without stressing any individuality.
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Are they serious?
One can ask that question about many works. In Galleri Enkehuset in Stockholm
they divided the audience on arrival into to different parts of the gallery
"A/B" (2000). In a way this is a rather typical example of relational
aesthetics. The audience is creating the content of the work, though here
manipulated by separation. On the contrary such pieces usually are presented
with some ambition of accomplishing something. But that seems not to be
the case with gutengut. It is as there is a secret hidden somewhere, which
hardly is the case. The effect is surprising or strange; the same effect
can be found in "Urban Legend, Naked Woman" (2001). Budgies
flying around in a gallery in Bergen juxtaposed to a copy of the famous
terrorist box, where the swedish minister of justice should have been
put, had it not been that the police was faster. The aboutness of this
project is somewhat stronger as the associations clearly circles around
democracy (the budgie being the democratic bird, known through ornitology)
and the terrorist planning to strike against the democracy in order to
hopefully create a society that should be more democratic. It seems that
the artist doesn't really care, which might be a point of view in accordance
with the freedom of art: The artist presenting the facts, diffusing the
issue with partly unfitting combinations of statements (or could-be statements).
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Gutengut as
a production unit was shown in a project in Kunstforeningen in Bergen
2001. The four members had installed a showcase in one of the rooms, though
it was not possible to watch the artists working inside it. During the
exhibition they produced a painting exhibition which was shown later.
Albeit they all have more or less background as painters, as most artists
still have, the outcome is more about the deconstruction of painting than
of the quality of the paintings. Ambitious painting is extremely difficult
to accomplish today, but to produce ordinary items is on the contrary
easy. Keeping away from the effort of making individual works, this production
was a group achievement and not addressing any certain issues in painting,
but rather the status of painting in general.
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Having certainly
a broad repertoire (including installation, relational works, painting,
conceptual works, curatorship video) one could still be astonished of
the video "Osvald" (2001). This video deals with a play by Ibsen,
"Gengangere" from 1885. The main character of the play, Osvald,
returning home from abroad, are met with the dark truth about his background.
From his dead father who has been living a debauched life he has inherited
a bad disease which soon is to end his life. His last days in life is
a mixture of confronting unpleasant facts about his father, and being
taken care of by his mother. The gutengut version of this rather pathetic
drama is a video showing some scenes from the last act. Amateurishly played,
and with one of them straightforward as the mother, it is, at least to
a certain extent, a funny and jaunty performance. But not really. The
performance is done as if it were the real thing which turns out being
more a way of showing the theatricality of Ibsen, and the theater in general,
than giving the spectator some fun. The question "Can we take it
seriously?" has here two meanings, referring to both gutengut and
the classical idea of the tragedy.
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No doubt, gutengut is in their work posing some interesting questions
about the identity and characteristics in contemporary art. Is it necessary
for art to be useful, and in what way? Does it need a moralistic standpoint?
I think that gutengut without a conscious intention is working in an open
field of questioning whether art is useful and correct. Not that their
art can't be given a meaning; that is always the job for the audience
and critics, but rather all the loose ends to be found in it. It is, anyway,
a picture of the contemporary world, confused, amusing but not very funny.
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