The notion of ‘pre-emptive action’ stems from an overpowering sense of fear. Pre-emptive means ‘designed or having the power to deter or prevent an anticipated situation or occurrence’. The pre-emptive strike revived by the Republican administrations in the U.S. testifies to their fear of the unforeseen, of difference, even of freedom. It is a calculated handling of reality typical of the postcolonial era, tactics already employed under Reagan, a policy of fighting against the ‘multiform, manoeuvring and omnipresent’. It is also an affirmation of what some people call a ‘prophetic community’, i.e. a community that is built on largely irrational convictions, and on moral and religious values.
What in this context could be the future of art? Where art essentially dealt with the ‘unknown’, or the ‘untranslatable’, it would resist accepting any monolithic interpretation of the world and favouring heterogeneous interpretations. This would be a very important thing to do in a society that likes to call itself ‘civilised’. In ‘critical’ art practice today though, we often witness an academic control from within. This auto-censorship stems from another type of fear. The fear to risk an irresponsible, reactive or reactionary (mis)reading. While documentary and archival strategies promote critiquing, they also prevent ambiguity from setting in. Artworks that shun the obvious and circumvent easy interpretation seem suspect to the kind of art discourse that cherishes the political. The gap between theory and visualisation as the basic artistic practice seems huge and there is a complete lack of dialogue between the two. Too often we deal with mere (artistic) testimonies rather than art that forces us into a dialogue. The fear of making mistakes threatens real criticism. and provokes the recuperation of the aesthetics of rebellious social movements.
These days, not even a hypothesis seems to provide any consolation or security because it might be turned into a (metaphorical) target. Hence art – as the most beautiful and imminent form of hypothesis – in this expectant state of imminent repression, if not suppression, could find itself in something like a state of emergency, under siege in its own space, under curfew, prohibited. Surely this would not be unlike what some of us are experiencing when compelled to make the crucial decision of ‘either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists’ – a decision no-one can make because there really is no choice, because we can only be somewhere between the two positions.
Will art likewise be coerced to abdicate and opt for such a non-choice in order to secure its present and future survival in the real world in which we have consciously given away our freedom and basic rights?
In contrast, this exhibition proposes scientific experiments with apocalyptic, macro-historical musings, entertainment as a way to invert and play with surveillance devices, figurative painting with overt and fierce loyalty to the everyday, featuring a lurking threat, abstract painting that refuses any promise, destabilizing geographical renderings, and striking examples of the transformation of everyday objects and behaviours into a new, elegantly intriguing experience.
This exhibition intends to invoke a situation that ‘pre-empts’ the realization and possibility of control. Creating a place suffused with possibilities, this show will be a reflection on the non-effectuation of history, an exploration of the specificity and the irrevocability of the event. It is an exhibition concerned with things that cannot be technocratically mastered, about flightlines, the difficult understanding of freedom versus continuous control.
Philippe Pirotte, May 2006
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