Art as Demonstration

How artists wield demonstration to question the status quo both aesthetically and politically, marshaling art and education as powerful agents of change.

Demonstration, in short, says: See here. It is the practice of pointing to something in order to explain or contest it. As such, Sven Spieker argues that demonstration has helped reshape art from the height of the Cold War to the late twentieth century, reformatting our understanding of how art and political engagement relate to each other. Focusing on Western Europe (especially Germany), Eastern Europe, and the United States, Art as Demonstration expands on contemporary discussions of art-as-protest, activism, and resistance. Spieker shows how a closer, more historical look at art’s connection with demonstration reconnects us with earlier efforts, notably by the early twentieth-century avant-garde, to marshal art for the purpose of instruction and engagement.

Art as Demonstration reconceives the history of postwar art in Eastern and Western Europe from the perspective of demonstration, understood formally (as a technique for showing and pointing) as well as politically (as protest, resistance, etc.). Close analyses of individual artworks reveal how the deployment of demonstration has changed over time. Spieker shows how “protest” and “resistance” organize art and artists not only politically but also and especially formally and aesthetically—a development of particular importance in the Cold War art and politics of Eastern Europe. The book illustrates how from the 1960s onward demonstration radically changed the way artists thought about art: no longer as an object but as a form of education.CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION: ART-AS-DEMONSTRATION IN THE 1960S AND BEYOND 1

2 OSTENTATIOUS NEUTRALITY 37
BERNAR VENET, DANIEL BUREN, ADRIAN PIPER

3 BURLESQUE LECTURE DEMONSTRATION 65
ROBERT MORRIS, WALTER BENJAMIN

4 FILM AS OPERATION 85
HARUN FAROCKI, PAWEŁ KWIEK

5 TAKING IT TO THE STREET: EASTERN EUROPEAN ART DEMONSTRATIONS 113
MILAN KNÍŽÁK, JIŘÍ KOVANDA, ENDRE TÓT, MLADEN MILJANOVIĆ, CIPRIAN HOMORODEAN

6 LEARNING FROM THE SITUATION 161
ULRIKE MEINHOF, CLEMENS VON WEDEMEYER

7 INSTRUCTIONS FOR SEEING 203
BAZON BROCK, WŁODZIMIERZ BOROWSKI

8 TEACHING WHAT DOES NOT EXIST 231
GNEZDO, ILYA KABAKOV

9 DEMONSTRATION IN SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET SPACE 259
EXTRA-GOVERNMENTAL CONTROL COMMISSION, RADEK COMMUNIT Y, CHTO DELAT 

10 POSTSCRIPT: THE MIGRANT’S HANDS: BETWEEN DEMONSTRATION AND ARCHIVE IN SYLVAIN GEORGE’S QU’ILS REPOSENT EN RÉVOLTE (DES FIGURES DE GUERRE) 287

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 301
NOTES 303
INDEX 349“Using close analysis of individual works, particularly from the 1960s onwards, [Art as Demonstration] highlights how artists’ perspectives on art have evolved from isolated objects to forms of education.”
—Artnet

“Art as Demonstration offers significant value with its unique case studies and methodology.”
—H-Net

“Spieker’s detailed case-studies are of interest to anyone looking at the intersection of art, demonstration, protest and knowledge.”
—International Affairs

“A very worthwhile read for those interested in the roots of the ongoing pedagogical fever within art institutions or in contemporary art’s revolutionary aspirations and failures, as well as for those researching both art (as) education and protest (as) art and wondering how these two interests may be combined.”
—Miejsce

“Spieker introduces the reader to the uncertain field of revolutionary or proto-revolutionary actions and performances by artists from the time of the neo-avant-garde through conceptual art to contemporary art.”
—AM Journal“This admirable book reframes art since the 1960s through the lens of the structural category of the demonstration. Spieker’s research is packed with insights into aesthetics and politics, past and present, propelled by rich collisions between case studies. The result is a voracious and thought-provoking demonstration in how to shift contemporary art history out of its conceptual rut.”
—Klara Kemp-Welch, Reader in 20th Century Modernism, The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, author of Networking the Bloc: Experimental Art in Eastern Europe 1965–1981

“Sven Spieker has fashioned an entirely new framework for thinking about politically-engaged art. What, he asks, is the relationship of showing to protesting? Crisply written and deeply thoughtful, he finds answers in artists’ attempts to use forms of instruction to produce revolutionary effects and even to refashion reality.”
—David Crowley, Head of the School of Visual Culture, National College of Art and Design
 
“Through a series of intricate and compelling case studies, Sven Spieker delivers a superb analysis of the many ways European and U.S. artists used demonstration techniques as pedagogical instruments during the Cold War. This highly engaging book makes an invaluable contribution to twentieth-century art scholarship. It is a must-read for anyone who takes efforts to mobilize art for instructional purposes seriously.”
—Alexander Alberro, author of Abstraction in ReverseSven Spieker is the founding editor of ARTMargins print journal and ARTMargins Online and Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of The Big Archive and the editor of Destruction (both MIT Press), and editor of Akusmatik im Labor: Kultur-Kunst-Medien.