Erratum

Compensation Portrait: Position and Program and General Scheme for the New Objectivity
Original Author: Helio Oiticica, 1966-1967
Notable Changes: Third person grammatically inserted to enable the text to present Helio Oiticica other than in the first person, but still enable the text to introduce Parangole.

Introduction

The Representing the Nation publication was prepared in relation to our participation in the International Triennial of Contemporary Art (ITCA) organized by Tomáš Vlček and Milan Knížák at the National Gallery (NG) in Prague in 2008. We were invited to create a new work.

We wanted to characterize the NG in Prague as an institution. In 2008 the NG was a member of the Association of Czech Galleries. We decided to visit all of its member institutions across the country during a six month period. This gave us an overview of topics, complications, facilities, and staff issues, including an understanding of the challenges the respective institutions face, in respect to the regional, economical, and historical collections of art for which they are responsible. How do they think about and reflect on their own practice? What kind of functions, positions, roles, or ambitions do they articulate?

Despite being dissatisfied with the research material, we made a decision to maintain the project’s original framework. We had anticipated more substantial visions or statements, so we applied an improvised strategy of so-called Compensation Portraits, inspired by a concept from the exhibition catalog First Papers of Surrealism held in New York in 1942. In this case, the surrealist painters were asked to bring photographs of people other than themselves to represent them in the publication. In this spirit, we selected theoretical texts on institutional critique from a range of international writers, translated these texts into Czech and presented them as texts from Czech institutions and their representatives.

The project as a whole was self-financed. The sponsors or partners whose logos are printed on page 59 at the end of the publication are all imaginary sponsors, themselves unaware of any seeming participation. Thus, the publication falsely takes on the form of a serious international cooperation between the European Institute for Progressive Cultural Practices (eipcp.net), the EU Education and Culture D6 Framework Program, the Association of Czech Galleries, the National Gallery Prague, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Prague, the Office for Contemporary Art Norway, and funded by the Austrian Raiffeisen Bank. This parody reflects the trend of corporate sponsorship supporting critical, progressive, intellectual, and autonomous initiatives within locations of their respective markets.

The Representing the Nation publication was immediately distributed to all of the represented institutions. The project was not appreciated by the organizers of the ITCA / NG, generally disappointed in not understanding the basic conceptual framework. They refused to cover production costs or to further communicate concerning the project. In addition, part of the publications went missing from the NG depository. Few institutions encouraged further dialogue, and there was limited interest by other representatives and researchers from various institutions in Prague.

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Benedict Rieth Gallery in Louny

Authority: The Ústí nad Labem Region
Director: PhDr. Alica Štefančíková

History:
The origin of the Gallery of Benedict Rieth dates back to 1965 when the Arts Department of the District Museum was set up as an independent institution. It started its activities in a historical building on Pivovarská Street. Up until 1991 the Gallery exhibited in rented premises – at the so-called Small Hall on the square. In the years 1967-1989 the building of the local brewery was reconstructed for the Gallery. In 1993 the architect E. Přikryl submitted a new design for the reconstruction of the building, which was then completed in 1996. As of 1967 the Gallery is also in charge of the Memorial Hall of Emil Filla at the chateau in Peruc.

Collection:
Constructivist trends in Czech visual art are represented by the works of J. Kolář, M. Grygar, Č. Kafka and other. Foreign art of this orientation includes works by Victor Vasarely, K. H. Adler, V. Koleichuk etc. K. Linhart, V. Mirvald, Z. Sýkora are a few who represent constructivist art from the Louny region. The collections also include whole sets of works and legacies of outstanding 20th-century artists, a collection of fine and applied art from the period between the two wars and Emil Filla’s estate

Statement:

Anti-art, in which the artist understand his or her position not longer as a creator for contemplation, but as an instigator of creation – “creation” as such: this process completes itself through the dynamic participation of the “spectator”, now considered as “participator.”
Anti-art answers the collective need for a creative activity which is latent and can be activated in a certain way by the artist. The metaphysical, intellectualist and aestheticist position thus become invalidated – there is no proposal to “elevate the spectator to a level of creation”, to a “meta-reality”, or to impose upon him an “idea” or “aesthetic model” corresponding to those art concepts, but give him a simple opportunity to participate, so that he “finds” there something he wants to realize.
What the artist proposes is, thus a “creative realization,” a realization exempt from moral, intellectual or aesthetic premises – anti art is exempt from these – it is a simple position of man within himself and in his vital creative possibilities. “Not to find” is an equally important participation, since it defines the freedom of “choosing” of anyone to whom participation is proposed.
The artist’s work, in whatever fixed aspects it may have, only takes meaning and completes itself through the attitude of each participator – it is he who attributes the corresponding signifiers to it: something unanticipated by the artist, but the attributed signifiers are unanticipated possibilities, generated by the work – and this includes non-participation among its innumerable possibilities. The issue of knowing whether it ceases to be, is not raised: there is no definition of what art is.

There is such a freedom of means that the very act of not creating already counts as a creative manifestation. An ethical necessity of another kind comes into being here, which I would also include in the environmental, since its means are realized through the word, written or spoken, and in a more complex way through discourse: This is the social manifestation, incorporating an ethical (as well as political) position which comes together as manifestations of individual behavior.
I should make it a bit clearer, first of all, that such position can only be a totally anarchic position, such is the degree of liberty implicit in it. It is against everything that is oppressive, socially and individually – all the fixed and decadent forms of government, or reigning social structures. The “socio-environmental” position is the starting point of all social and political changes, or the fermenting of them at least – it is incompatible with any law which is not determined by a defined interior need, laws being constantly remade – it is the retaking of confidence by the individual in his or her intuitions and most precious aspirations.

Politically, this position is that of all the genuine lefts of this world – not of course the oppressive lefts (of which stalinism was an example). It could not possibly be otherwise. For me, the most complete expression of this entire concept of “environmentation” was the formulation of what was called by the Brazilian artist Helio Oiticica, namely Parangole. This is much more than a term which defines a series of typical works: the capes, banners and tent. Parangole is the definitive formulation of what environmental anti-art is, precisely because, in these works, it was given the opportunity, an idea, of fusing together color, structures, poetic sense, dance, words, photography – it was the definitive pact with what should be defined as totality – work, if one may speak of pacts in this regard. We should therefor from now call Parangole all the definitive principles formulated here, including that of nonformulation of concepts, which is the most important. He do not want or intent to create, as it were, a “new anti-art aesthetic”, since this would already be an outdated and conformist position. Parangole is anti-art par excellence; and we should intend to extend this practice of appropriation to things in the world which we come across in the streets, vacant lots, fields, the ambient world, things which would not be transportable, but which we should invite the public to participate in. This would be a fatal blow to the concept of the museum, art gallery, etc. , and to the very concept of “exhibition.” Either we change it, or we remain as we are. Museum is the world: daily experience.