Page 94 - 50.La Biennale di Venezia issue of World of Art Magazine

ON THE ETHICAL AND SOCIAL ROLE OF ART

One of the primary tasks of art and, in all probability, the task that The annihilation that our ability to autonomously evaluate events
might well be defined as its fundamental task, is that of destructively, is undergoing is due to the inertia and cultural conformity in which
(critically) thwarting the false sense of equilibrium that is proper each individual conscience is ensnared. The unscrupulous use of the
to concepts of stasis and immobility, perpetrating a continuous means of communication and culture by so-called democracies has
dynamism with both constructive and deconstructive qualities and led to ever more widespread indifferentiation and uniformity, forcing
characteristics. the masses to interpret the role of subordinate extras. Individuals
are ever more steered and coerced by those who control the media.
What might now seem to be artistic phenomenologies tied to or The precepts expressed by the media system are converted into
derived from a certain avant-garde are so thoroughly held under norms, insidiously defining themselves as ordinary statutes able to
check and domesticated by imperialist logic and structure that it is manipulate situations where they are then accepted as real. The
quite natural to wonder if it isn’t time to look for a new, complete videocratic system, by definitively replacing democracy in its formal
series of models (both regulatory and in terms of resistance) able aspects, has made public opinion less prone to react, and therefore
to counterbalance the totalitarian phenomenon of globalization, easier to control and manipulate. The completely passive attitude
towards which modern man is inexorably moving. A process that we assume when watching television is in fact the exact opposite
seems ever more irreversible. of what it means to observe reality with a critical eye, to experience
events and feel responsible, or to react to what is happening.
Standardisation has absorbed and made impotent all those cultures
that once represented moments of rupture, opposition, counter- The currently dominant and prevaricating social form is everything
trends. Moments that possessed a quality that could be used that belongs to the concept of “capital”. Capital, metaphorically,
to re-discuss, re-arrange, re-evaluate already-existing precepts. could be defined as a sort of “enroller”who is able to transform
Moments able to inspire profound reforms in man’s ethical evolution. individuals into vectors of desire in that it acts on factors that are
linked to the concept of privation. And by organizing individuals as
The affirmation of a new collective consciousness now seems vectors of desire, they are subjugated at will. In fact, what were once
light years away, while the last spark of a decrepit idealism that considered determining social forms (territory, group, etc.) have all
engendered the idea of autonomy has already been consigned “morphologically” been transformed into the concept of capital, the
to the history books. In a certain sense, in fact, 1968 was the last arch enroller able to apply totalitarian surveillance schemes and
cultural expression from beyond the pre-existing system, even therefore control all signs of potential change.
though it carried within itself, and from its very birth, the seeds of
its own failure. Shortly afterwards an apparently crystalline world However, and in light of recent tragic events, it is obvious that
was supposed to appear, the role of which was merely to respond those aspects that are bandied about as the success stories of
(and blindly accept) numeric imperatives and sinister formal modern technocratic society are also leading to confusion, they are
manipulations. world that was to be based solely on the concept of therefore beginning to show themselves to be failures. In fact, what
economic control. A world so strong that it could impose on man we normally define as “competitive attitudes tied to the concept of
rules derived from the most arid and sterile economic logic. A world maximum profit” must in some way be transformed, as the values
able to burst brutally into individual consciences, taking their place of growth, power and domination, as they are intended nowadays,
and emptying what we still maintain are profound human values are now no longer sustainable. If were to think of the freedom that
and healthy ethical principles of all their contents. Right up to the is implicit in all artistic creation not only as a vehicle and possible
present. escape route, but as an element necessary to uncovering and
changing sociocultural characteristics of the world we live in, then
What should be a richness that is consubstantial with the human what should contemporary artistic production be like in order to be
spirit has given over to ever more synthetic and artificial criteria. able to respond to requests for cultural renewal and change? What
The abstract, deceptive and aleatory proclamations of the capitalist new paradigms should contemporary man cum artist assume if he
system have almost entirely infected the spirit of our age. The false wants to contribute to evicting what has become the materialistic
values codified by a media-dependent system have found their yoke able to make life itself unnatural, reducing it to a useless game
raison d’être in the ability to justify wars, environmental disasters that entraps the reawakening of its own soul?
and intolerable repression of those opposition movements who,
courageously, are continuing a search for an affirmation of their own Perhaps rethinking and rediscussing ourselves as men who can
identity. determine their own existence through the ethics of doing might be
a first step towards that much desired path that could possibly save
us from the furious insanity of our current era. (Andrea Pagnes)
94 WORLD of ART