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This text is manipulated from an online conversation that took place between Serkan Özkaya (artist) and Vasıf Kortun (restlessincorporated) on November 30, 2003
Manifesta Journal, No. 2, Winter 2003 / Spring 2004
restlessincorporated: You know it is Sunday. Postcuratorial is the topic of the day.
artist: A “plagiarist can utter a truth that does not belong to him. The author can write his fake books. The author cannot escape the noise.” The plagiarist cannot catch the noise.” Good topic, yes. I am having a problem lately. I keep hearing a certain noise all the time.
restlessincorporated: Like an interference?
Artist: Alarm bells, it’s called in Corrections (Franzen). As if I had come home from a loud party, and when everything else is silent, there is this beep—sirens of alarm.
“The novel to be written is lost in the noise. The noise is the foundation all stories appear from. The truth of the author is hidden in the noise.” (that’s Calvino on Calvino; you know his brilliant If on a winter’s night a traveller where the whole structure is made up of beginnings and “maybe the complete book consists only of beginnings.” Calvino’s approach is based on Greimas’s theory and his grammatological square —if that’s not a horrible translation— and Calvino is free to manipulate this system, play with it, and appropriate it one hundred percent; simply because of two reasons: first because he is writing on his own work and second he is a fiction writer.
Restlessincorporated: I was thinking last night about how you have become impossible to include in a group exhibition and how copies of your hand-drawn Radikal newspaper of something like 150,000 copies —all originals— permeated the Istanbul Biennial as an uninvited guest. However, I thought the piece was “sobered up” and became an object as Radikal kept copies of the paper on display for the whole seven weeks of the exhibition. It became part of the show; who would want to look at or read a paper from a month ago? However, let us salute the editor-in-chief for participating in such an economically absurd idea.
Artist: The economy of a piece and the economy of a large show might not coincide. However, personally, I must say I feel much more comfortable with the situations that I initiate without having been invited to. That does not necessarily mean the piece will be better in a voluntary situation, but it gives one a certain drive. Stronger than, say, an invitation to any large show. You remember our last chat: “I do not want to be a member of a club that does accept me as a member.” (be it Groucho or Karl, or Woody Allen).
Restless incorporated: Postcuratorial is basically a located practice, interfacing aspects of 1990s secular curatorial practice and late-80s self-organized artist-initiated programs quite unlike what Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt describes in her text, New Institutionalism. I prefer to substitute the notion of (new) institutional practice as it has been exercised by Rooseum, BAK or, Kunstverein Munchen, and others with the term “postcuratorial.”
artist: When I started my project of discussions, as a matter of fact, I did not know that it was a project in terms of being planned in advance. On the contrary, it turned out to be a long-term project without being stimulated. I had been initiating discussions with different people, many of these people happened to be curators. When I was trying to buy a plane ticket to somewhere from my budget at Rooseum, Charles (Esche) said something like, “If you do not define this carefully it might turn into interviews with famous curators.” Implied is, of course, famous curators that you normally try to nail down and be acquainted with so that you can make your way into their famous and big show as they were. Although there is a certain difference between a more usual model of an art institution and places like Rooseum or yours, as there is a particular difference —I believe— between a more usual model of an artist or a curator and my practice. I was wondering, can you try and define the role of the curator in these institutions (among others rooseum, bak, Platform etc.)
restlessincorporated: Our practice at Platform is more provisional, relativist, and concerned with our situatedness. It is not production-obsessed. We do not have an in-house curator. I prefer that artists and audiences coexist within the space, but it is only a model for our street in Istanbul. Regarding the provisionality of the post-curatorial, these medium-sized institutions will help transform the larger ones. It is a mode of organizing possible subject representations in the new European societies
artist: I think most of the time, these places are more slick than any artist-run space could be. When I think of the Superflex show at Rooseum, for instance, it looks like a well-designed coffee table magazine. Do you believe curators (usually or not) are more into style and design than artists? At least in this show, I was talking about.
restless incorporated: In that particular instance, there was a museum-like display satirizing the Nordic design dimension and the hollowed-out forms of a democratic ideal, more object than a document, and certainly more mausoleum. The whole thing was intentional, but I cannot say I bought into it.
artist: I believe satire consists of at least two elements. One is adoration and the second is mockery. The design at Rooseum was so correct that the mockery was obscured by all this–if there was any mockery to begin with, of course. And the adoration of such design, if you will, left no room for this crucial satirical element. It wasn’t funny at all. In this respect, to what extent do you think the budget plays a role?
Restless incorporated: No role at all. It is not about the money, honey! But not having it can be quite problematic. We were abused last December by NIFCA and Kiasma in Helsinki when Jens Hoffmann initiated Institution2. They distribute Justice with their public funds.
artist: how poetic…
restlessincorporated: Sometimes in the Nordic countries there is a distinct way of doing that.
artist: Let’s think of my piece with many, many slides in Istanbul and at Beganegrond. The first one is no budget, more or less self-initiated, and the second one is a new context, more work, and now I can not even use a single picture of my piece. Well, I think, if there is money, an object will occur and find a way to come to life. For example, in Jurassic Park, when they were going to see the animals, the founder of that place said that all the dinos were female. Thus, there were no offspring; our man in black said, “Life will find a way.” Because money itself is an object, an object of exchange. You cannot get rid of it. You cannot turn it totally into labor. (And you know that guy in black was starring in The Fly.) In that movie, the fly also found a way into life. See, it was accidentally in the chamber. The transformation chamber—I don t even remember what the guy was trying to turn himself into, but in the end, the fly succeeded in taking over. Vasif, there is a fly in all of us; you know what I mean. a black one, one house one, a musca domestica).
restlessincorporated: Let us separate this notion of production from the idea of the bogus copyright that a photographer takes of your work, gets paid for the photography, and still claims the right to the image when you sell the document of the work. Let us not go there.
artist: Well, I still cannot see why art is closer to painting and not to literature or economy or anything. It seems natural in the first place that anything can be a substance. But even afterward when you “show” it, it becomes a painting or let us say an art object. Painting. Nowadays, when someone asks me what my profession is, I say painter or sometimes sculptor, but it is a bit more problematic. ‘Painter’ wins with no excuses whatsoever. (I guess I also have personal issues with that kind of profession or ‘duty.’)
restlessincorporated: Art is further away from painting than literature, economy or anything. We still maintain some productivist lineage, which is not only related to the notion of painting but what gets me is that we still oblige ourselves to make some apologetic comment about the staying power of painting to confirm its lebensraum, so to speak. Why does sculpture die and painting survive as a “zombie medium?”
artist: so this provisional moment of yours is, in fact, a middle stage between the artist’s pure ‘ignant and shit’ initiation and the money invested in finding a way for it to become a work of art —a painting, as said. Who needs to change the Louvre? It is about framing, no?
Restless incorporated: The narratives of the Louvres have to be changed or at least diversified, as well as their conditions of presentation and contextual frame.
artist: Correcting the History. Where does responsibility come from? Unconditional hospitality brings responsibility, says Charles Esche quoting Derrida. I think that’s a crucial point—the point of responsibility. I don’t even like the noun. It’s funny how curators seem to like these concepts, e.g., Justice! responsibility! Enemies of individuals. Sword of Damocles. I say: no responsibility! Justice is always bad!
Restless incorporated: History cannot be corrected, There is no such thing as History. Responsibility for me is a personal prerogative. Do you mean accountability?
artist: how can it be personal if you are responsible for something that is not you?
restlessincorporated: Where does ‘you’ end for those of us working as agents in civic spaces? I felt responsible and saved our conversation to disk.
Artist: Okay, cool. There is no history, no framing, and no recording. So, how can you make big assumptions or statements? That’s what I was talking about; you saved it, and it’s shameful there even before we started it.
Restless incorporated: I feel like that often, too, in the sense that although I cannot make the world a better place, I will not stop from attempting to do so (I just found out that someone said this before). I am, however, in full consciousness of this missionary position. I doubt I know any other option.
Artist: Let’s go back to practical examples and provisions. Like many philosophers that have bad taste in art, I feel like a crap philosopher (I mean an artist that is a crap philosopher). There is a lovely passage in E. L. Doctorow’s Waterworks where the main guy —or our guy in black— says: “Harry was an idiot. Although the hand of an unseen god made him paint beautiful paintings. I reckon that it was like that with all the painters.” (You can imagine I read the book in Turkish and now recall and translate it simultaneously, but you got the drift, no? Artists are idiots; philosophers have bad taste.) And I see you getting excited about artwork. So, the role you are undertaking is more of a middleman. The institutions you are starting are there to stay. I guess all these people you mentioned — the provisional postcurators — are kind of restless and changing their status constantly.
restlessincorporated: What gets me excited is not the thing but what it does to me.
artist: is it like giving someone a book you loved? or more like reading an unknown writer and publishing him?
restlessincorporated: The first edition is, I hope, not the curatorial benchmark But don’t take pleasure away
artist: Sureyyya has an idea that today’s art is akin to the punk movement. The actors believe that without being capable to read music or even play properly, they can form a punk band and make music.
restless incorporated: That is Sureyyya, who may not comprehend today’s art, believing he can make an intelligent and sweeping point about it. That is such a retrograde position. But, there is too much professional knowledge in the art world today that I tell art students in the academies to stop history crunching and display how much they know.
artist: I don’t think it is about the students in the academies. That is what I was also trying to get at. Confession: I really get bored in front of paintings in museums. I mean all my friends —artists and post-curators— told me to go and see the El Greco show. I went and saw the show. It is good, great, and all, but … is it art? Creativity is like a horse race, our friend Orhan Pamuk said once; everyone talks about the winner only after the race. (I guess he got that from somewhere else… whatever.) I always thought of you as someone who doesn’t care much about a career. for some reason I don’t know. But you know I have a project for you when you take over the Louvre.
restlessincorporated: Today, you have to put a gun to my head for me to see an El Greco show. But let me tell you something else: all along the way is frustration. Our international community does not make our audience. The friction with those who construct your local narratives and your international community takes place right where you stand.
artist: but again, your international community writes your History, the History. They are the ones that record and frame. And, somehow, this international community creates its audience. Oh, we still have the problem of the artwork being in one place at one time.
restlessincorporated: I know. You know how much I want to direct a major European museum and why I turned down the big show.
artist: thus, your carelessness for a career
restlessincorporated: The international community is part of a parallel history, fickle and equally displaced, equally vulnerable. That is why I prefer it. I remember your email, which I keep using in lectures. It ran, “Let’s start by not publishing this report.” The report…
artist: …becomes the only one. The rest is not interested in writing it. In a few decades, it’s a bestseller. I think it was in Rousseau’s Confessions: “he told me that if people were given the chance to change their roles, the number of people that rule will descend.” I didn’t say that. So, is Platform, an off-the-record organization? Also, you keep organizing these lectures, talks, workshops, etc, which only a handful of people can participate in, and it is always the same people. That’s the core activity.
restlessincorporated: our lectures are about density; thousands of people visit our exhibitions, and You can’t fold one over the other.
artist: but it is a bit irrelevant how many people visited your show during the biennial. I am sure more people visited the shoe-stand next door. Scary.
Restless incorporated: We probably have more people interested in us than the shoe stand or the shops around because we are free. However, I don’t see a fundamental distinction in the visitor experience; the exhibition space differentiates itself by way of accessibility without utility, challenge, and generosity, and this is a critical situation in Istanbul, where art is associated with high-brow culture, in effect, a kitsch condition.
artist: And that is where the newspaper project differs from that experience. So, where does the money come from?
restlessincorporated: Core funding is Garanti Bankası, and the rest are public funds.
Artist: Maybe your real audience is the bank’s members, I mean people who put their money there. I know that Platform, as well as other galleries of that bank or any other bank in Turkey, are considered PR, and this PR affects the customer profile. Platform, I believe, is a substantial part of it.
restlessincorporated: The terms have changed; PR is older lingo, and new terminology is less obtuse. Also, Platform does not operate like any other bank-funded art institution. If the Platform impacts the customer profile, I would only be happy for it; if the independence of the institution is jeopardized, it would be time to move on. What if Platform would be a model for a bank? What if the bank was administered like Platform?
artist: if we could go back to the mutuality between capital and product and the status of the middleman, it is significant that the effects are not clear in the first place. I mean that Platform and its capital are not linked with an umbilical cord. If the bank was administered like Platform we would all be rich. How would you insert this position into an old European museum though?
restlessincorporated: I couldn’t; it would need a new plan.
artist: one last one: “this work originated from my fear of losing everything. This work is about controlling my own fear. My work cannot be destroyed. I have destroyed it already, from day one. The feeling is almost like when you are in a relationship with someone and you know it is not going to work out. From the very beginning you know that you dont have to worry about it not working out because you simply know that it wont. The person then cannot abandon you, because he has already abandoned you from day one —that is how I made this work. This work cannot disappear. This work cannot be destroyed the same way other things in my life disappeared and left me. I destroyed it myself instead. I had control over it and this is what has empowered me. But it is a very masochistic kind of power. I destroy the work before I make it.” Felix Gonzales-Torres.
vasıf kortun 