Deserting from the Culture Wars

by Maria Hlavajova (Editor), Sven Lütticken (Editor)

Artists and writers consider a tactical desertion from the “culture wars”—a refusal to be distracted, an embrace of the emancipatory understanding of culture. Deserting from the Culture Wars reflects upon and intervenes in our current moment of ever-more polarizing ideological combat, often seen as the return of the “culture wars.” How are these culture wars defined and waged? Engaging in a theater of war that has been delineated by the enemy is a shortcut to defeat. Getting out of the reactive mode that produces little but a series of Pavlovian responses, this book proposes a tactical desertion from the culture wars as they are being waged today—a refusal to play the other side's war games, an unwillingness to be distracted. The volunteer troops in the culture wars are often given marching orders by professional masters of propaganda. What, then, might artists and others who are professionally engaged with images and imaginaries, with narratives and assemblies, have to contribute to the collective discovery of different modes of living culture? Far from limiting the performance of culture to a one-sided speech act, to the abstract “right to say something,” an emancipatory understanding of culture needs to conceive of it as embodied and intersubjective—as a collective performance. Contributors Bini Adamczak, Kader Attia, Rose Hammer, Tom Holert, Charl Landvreugd and Sebastian Olma, Geert Lovink and Esmee Schoutens, Sven Lütticken, Diana McCarty, Dan McQuillan, Johannes Paul Raether, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Jonas Staal

268 pages, Paperback

Published October 6, 2020

About the author

Maria Hlavajova is Founding Artistic Director of BAK (basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht) and Artistic Director of Former West (2008–2016).

Reviews

[Stuart]

I read a decent amount of theory and a decent amount of Graeber-style pop leftism (for want of a better term--leftist politics in the big idea book format), this falls somewhere between the two.

While the title is electrifying, the text is largely concerned with the Basis voor Actuele Kunst program for non fascist living. Which is cool, but by focusing on the ways fascism propagates they don't spend enough time on addressing economic and cultural alienation, and how to build culture to address those issues. This is more of a "clearly identify the current, alarming problem" thing than a "here's a plan for defeating the system that keeps creating the alarming problems" thing.

The theory here is primarily artistic/cultural rather than economics and I found some of the expression of our current moment (and what led to it) to be very refreshing. I found parts of each essay to be a bit of a slog, though, with too much focus on Institutional Art and not enough focus on how to actually build dual power from a cultural perspective (I did appreciate the interview towards the end with Geert Lovink where he talked about the decade plus he spent attempting just that and absolutely failing--he was very candid and his level of bemusement is a masterclass in clear-eyed detachment).

I feel like art should always expand the horizon of the possible for us and this collection of social theory largely does so. Overall I would like something a little more pop-science out of this and less academic, a manifesto of possibility perhaps? But I did pull good stuff out of every essay. I especially enjoyed the essays by Bini Adamczak and Kader Attia. Maybe not the best place to start if you want a social theory take on the current moment, but certainly not a bad one.

[Shannon]

KSKS