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Eda �ufer
A conversation with Charles Harrison

You come from a generation that coined the concept of conceptual art and caused ( to use your term) "a paradigmatic turn" in art thirty years ago. Since we are today facing a new "turn" it would be interesting to hear your opinion of the changes in art at that time.

It is possible to define conceptual art as a "paradigmatic turn". It was impossible to continue with a normal, conventional carrier in art. Artists did not find it acceptable anymore to go to their studio everyday, prepare a canvass and paint. On the other hand it seems that art still enables a certain practise. It was even exciting to continue the artistic practise in a situation where all parameters, which had previously defined art, had become absurd. There were two choices. One, typical of American conceptual art, led back to Duchamp and was governed by the idea that: "Painting has reached its end, sculpture has reached its end, what is left is art as a generic field of experience". Within this possibility art becomes a way of discussing art and new ways are sought to make ever more exotic "ready mades". The second variant, which was followed by the group Art&Language, with which I am associated, sought possibilities for establishing new research practises: discussion, thinking, reading and writing.

You said that the phenomenon of conceptual art coincides with the "crisis of capitalism". Can you explain this?

At the end of the 60's and the beginning of the 70's there were two views regarding the issue of what was happening in our society. One was represented by people who believed that the final crisis of capitalism had arose. In student movements, strikes and the occupation of universities they saw the beginning of a revolution. It was obvious that student movements were not authentically revolutionary, but protest movements. None of the existing regimes were truly shaken. In France the student movements revived de Gaull's power. In Great Britain and in the United States we experienced a massive turn to the right in the 1970's and 80's. I do not know any conceptual artist who would claim to be right wing and yet it would be hard for me to say that those that I admire believed that the revolution was on the horizon. In this sense conceptual art was not art for the arriving world, but it was based on the critical analysis of the given world.

During the last two years there have been several exhibitions and conferences in Eastern Europe which prove the existence of the little known Eastern European conceptual art movement. This was connected more to totalitarism then capitalism, and one could say that its revolutionary perspective was brought to life. How well are you acquainted with the processes which emerged after the fall of socialism?

Not very well. I am acquainted with some depressive processes, which followed the fall of the Berlin wall. Western dealers barged into the former Russian empire - first to find whatever could be presented to the West as evidence of suppressed modernism. While the merging was ripening they left aside modernism and started to seek for authentic cases of socialist realism, for this is becoming an ever rarer product. But I suppose what you are really asking me is, how do I see the events in the East from the other side of the world? From my experiences on this trip and some previous ones I have learnt that modernism means different things to different people. I have just returned from a conference on art and ideology in Zagreb, where many Croatian art historians talked about local avant-garde movements and abstract art from the 1950's. With no hesitation they presented this art as absolute modernism, but for me, most of what I saw was conservative abstraction. I believe that I would become very unpopular if I stated my opinion in Zagreb. This experience shows, that, from different view-points, from different social and historic contexts, one can see very different things.

What is your relation to the terms "globalisation" and "global culture"?

I am not an economist, someone who would truly understand the forces behind the idea of globalisation. Some technical instruments of this process are clear; loss of control over financial markets, an increase and easing of financial transfers from one state to another, the influence of electronic technology. All this is just a drop in the ocean of the much more serious symptoms of globalisation and its consequences on what is currently happening in art. I expect that art will start transcribing ways and relations created by the new technologies. I can imagine that many artists dream about using these powerful technologies in their concepts. This is like trying to catch a tiger with a rope. If we think that everybody in the world has the right to put his image into the system, the result will be that we will never be able to look at all these images at the same time. We will still need systems for filtering and I believe that the new political systems will be based on the supervision of filters. People who will sort data will offer you their choice of the "top ten". I do not see the chance to bypass systems possessing such power and I believe that the concept of global culture has a larger meaning for people selling ideas that to those who are buying them.

Art in the 1960's and 1970's did not only establish the critic of a work of art as a commodity, but also the critic of the gallery system and museums. Today museums, galleries and other large events in art are gaining enormous power. They are "filters" which place works of art into the context of art. How would you comment on this situation?

It is true that there were many debates on the topic of abolishing museums, galleries and art dealers and placing art into a field of direct communication. In the 30's the exact opposite happened. Galleries are emerging with every step and one can also notice a large increase in the number of museums. There are two viewpoints as regards the existing situation, which divide not only groups interested in art and culture, but also individual perceptions. On one hand we have people who defend the belief that discrimination should not be permitted and that art should be treated as one form of visual production. If you believe in such a necessity, then you are almost forced to take into account very large groups and categories of artistic production to the extent that you almost should not be interested in qualitative differences. In this event your main interest in art is connected to the study of tendencies within society. On the other hand there are those for whom art is important as a factor of differentiating within the gigantic mass of visual culture. Between these two possibilities I have found myself in a strange situation, for I am interested in art as a form of social production, but I am also an aesthetic. If you asked me for my "top ten" they would all be very different, from different countries, in different styles. I find it very difficult to construct sociological generalisations.

We have heard that the New York MoMa (Museum of Modern Art), the legendary first museum of modern art, founded in 1929, and P.S.I., also a legendary institution, established in 1971 during the main flourish of conceptual art, are being merged into one institution. How would you comment on this fact?

Here is an example of globalisation. More and more corporations are merging into one. The product therefore becomes more homogeneous, the leadership structure and power are enforced. I will stress once again that I see globalisation more in the form of the distribution of art than in forms of production. I find it important for the artists not to fall for the belief that with the possibility of global distribution they are creating a global culture.

Do you not feel that this merger is connected to the endeavours for monumentalising New York, as some sort of modern Florence and with the institutionalisation of art history of the 20^th century?

By all means. For a very long time New York was a centre of world culture. It must be admited that great works of art came to life there. I, personally, would swap everything I saw at the exhibition adjoining the conference on art and ideology in Zagreb for a single painting by Mark Rothko. I am sorry I must admit this. I know that my viewpoint sounds regressive, and I wish this were not true. But if it is true, we should not be afraid to admit it, for otherwise we must accept the fact that our judgements are relative to our endeavours. It seems to me that New York is currently in the same position as Paris was in the 1950's, where it is trying to hold on to the status of the art and intellectual centre, while the centre has already moved elsewhere.

Where?

I do not know. There is no centre any more. We all travel, artists can have studios anywhere, we communicate via the Internet and we do not have to try to live and work in the centre of the art world. The era of large modernistic centres has gone, and this is what we most probably think of when we say we live in a post-modern world. I do not know whether it is true, it is just what I have heard.

First published: Delo, 8. 3. 1999, p. 8