Can we think of social practice art without the political?
Of course you can think whatever you want, i.e. art-based-social practice without the political, but it seems to me the question is: can you do art-based-social practice without the political? My gruff answer would be: No. If you are putting the social into practice you inevitably will need to navigate the political. Ok, let’s think for a moment and ask what exactly is “the political”? And what is art-based-social practice? The second question first.
Why this clunky term, art-based-social practice? Art based: It seems lamentable to me in some ways that this phenomenon even exists, with social necessities being taken up by the artistically inclined, in so much as certain social goods have been out/art-sourced to artist-entrepreneurs who have relatively little means but in the tiny art world they can at times get attention and even leave that world altogether into the stratospheres of success. But relative to a proper social safety net it is a drop in the bucket. Social practice art might just be a canary in the coal mine of dying State-based Social Infrastructure…will we one day see health care art? I shudder to think at the very real possibility if it’s not happening already…
On the other hand, art-based-social practice fills me with hope and admiration…artists love to do things differently…a cliché, I know…and you are right, lots of folks do things differently…but give artists an assignment in school and they will gleefully chuck the rules…And sometimes this is what is required to practice the social…To break social convention…So art-based-social practice may in the end just be asocial practice…Where thinking becomes form and life moves into art…and the art work displays its discontents for all the world to see…Maybe…I am not sure…
Susan Hiller once said (and I paraphrase): what else would art be but a social practice…art maybe made alone in a studio, or in a wheat field, or at a party, or a demonstration…in any of these scenarios I think there is a longed-for connection…a request or a proposition to share another (god help me) world view…and that is perhaps why I refer to what we are discussing as art-based-social practice…
The asocial…to implore someone to contemplate another world is inherently asocial…it rubs the received social customs against the grain…because it isn’t this world—the one we have…it is artistic to paint a picture when there wasn’t one…why do it if not for no other reason than a high stakes political wager of drawing somebody into a world that may be different from the one they currently inhabit…why form, something like Tania Bruguera’s IMMIGRANT MOVEMENT INTERNATIONAL, if not to paint another picture of the world: where immigrants are treated with respect. Or: set up a flag pole in Chicago for people to fly other types of flags as in Philip von Zweck’s Temporary Allegiances. Or: host an Ice Cream Social like David Robbins. Or: Pull! with William Pope.L. …So, thinking the political and doing the political are different but related…art can be sought in every practice…the political resides there too.
With thanks to Shannon Stratton
About the contributor: Zachary Cahill is an artist who lives and works in Chicago. zacharycahill.com