***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 09:20:46 +0200
   [From]: Pat Binder <pat@uinic.de>
     [To]: Cultural Exchange via Internet <forum1@hkw.kbx.de>
[Subject]: Corruption in the Arts/The Art of Corruption


Dear friends,

In an essay written in 1995, Luis Camnitzer (from Uruguay based in New
York) approaches the difficult postition of being an artist today. His
confessions and interior struggle describe what most commited artists
around the world would not dare to admit: that the easy situation of
dealing with a maniqueist world  - I hope this is a word in English -
is gone, and that everything is "far more complicated".

The essay titled "La Corrupcion en el Arte / El Arte de la Corrupcion"
(Corruption in the Arts/The Art of Corruption) we have published with
Gerhard Haupt on our Universes in Universe's site in the original
Spanish version and a German translation.
http://universes-in-universe.de/forum/marcpol/s_cam1.htm (Spanish)
http://universes-in-universe.de/forum/marcpol/d_cam1.htm (German)

With my language limitations, I have made an English translation of one
of the key parts. I hope this works well without the context of the
complete essay. I just wanted to bring it up for discussion.

"(...) The whole point today is 'how to utilize corruption, without
becoming corrupted'.

The dilemma has no solution, therefore I have armed myself with a moral
structure, which I ended up calling 'ethical cynicism'. The essence of
this position is based on the idea that, to prostitute oneself
consciously is better than to do it unaware. In the first case it is a
strategy, in the second, it is corruption. As a strategy it serves me to
identify the line, I am about to trespass, and therefore, it allows me -
to a certain point -  to reverse the action. Restricted to corruption as
a product of unawareness, the act is forced to lead to a rhetoric of
justification, without the possibility of assuming the responsibility
for the decision.

The advantage of using the strategy, is that it permits an analysis of
the conditions. Among these conditions, it allows to use those, which
could lead to implement an ideology, even if that could seem to be
contradicted by the steps followed to accomplish it. But this sentence
I've just written is terrible, because what it ends up saying is that
the end justifies the means. The day I understood that the art object is
also a commercial object, the illumination came out of the deep belief
in the contrary, that the end never justifies the means.

The forty years that went by since then, did not erase my ideology of
that time, but they made clear to me that there is a serious difference
between my utopian and pure beliefs, and the reality in which we live.
With this "ethical cynicism" I could, at least, fabricate me the
illusion that I can keep my ideas pure, or that I can, at least identify
them. This purity (or from some points of view, ingenuity) includes
several beliefs that still try to guide my mind. One of them is that the
individual artistic work is incidental, and that the culture is a
collective process. Another one is, that commercialization is what
emphasizes the individualistic myth. And furthermore, that it is the
commercialization which manipulates and distorts the functions of the
national arts from being originally communal expressions to become
chauvinistic ones. And finally, that it is the commercialization, which
in the field of the arts, turns the polarity center / periphery into a
relation of power."

best wishes

pat binder
http://pat-binder.de

PS: Luis Camnitzer's bio (in English) with further links, you can find
under:
http://universes-in-universe.de/america/ury/camnitzer/e_bio.htm