2009 No6
December / January
Urgent
To mark the thirtieth anniversary of METROPOLIS M, we are repeating a model from exactly ten years ago, when we optimistically presented ‘Thirteen Agendas for the Future’. This time, perhaps somewhat less optimistically, we have asked 13 representatives from the art world to call our attention to an issue that they consider urgent. What have we discovered? Almost everyone responded with a political question outside art, or spoke of the need for art to be more focused on developments elsewhere in the world.
Such political motivation might be considered remarkable in a time that, until very recently, was striking for its politically very incorrect art, its nostalgic disposition and its tradition-bound art production. If the 1990s saw a proliferation of experimentation outside the traditional boundaries of art, in the streets, interdisciplinary and multimedial, in our new century, the art of the marketplace and the white cube have prevailed. Exploring boundaries has been replaced by reconfirmation.
Some writers in the magazine before you have harsh words with which they dismiss what they see as the regressive mentality of the first years of the new century. Merijn Oudenampsen accuses the art world of unremitting narcissism. He calls on everyone to act. Others, already taking action, report their doubts about the consequences of their renewed engagement. A horrified Goshka Macuga observes how raw and repulsive the unfiltered world becomes once it is let loose in the artistic domain. Themes familiar from the 1990s may be alive and well in the art of today, but not without suffering some bumps and bruises on the way.
Domeniek Ruyters
After the proclamation of the end of history, now the future is in crisis as well. How do we escape this stalemate?
The Third World War
01/12/09 Marlene Dumas
(Or, How ‘Postwar Art’ Has Become a Contradiction in Terms)
We have to stop the Second World War so we can stop the Third World War.
(Or, How the Language of the Second World War Blocks a Clear Vision on the Present War(s).)
Forty-One Years Later in Paris
01/12/09 Claire Fontaine
Museifcation is a composite process. One of its aspects is the deactivation of the living potential of an object or an event. But recently there is also another force: the petrifaction that occurs when an event, object or artwork is declared iconic.
Walls of Distrust
01/12/09 Régine Debatty
In November this year the world celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The very mediatized destruction of the barrier that separated East Berliners from their Western neighbours has been regarded ever since as a powerful symbol of freedom and hope.
On the Wall/Off the Wall
01/12/09 Nasrin Tabatabai
In the recent post-election uprisings in Iran, all the forgotten slogans from the revolution of 1979 were shouted by a generation that had not experienced that revolution. They were appropriating them for the greater glory of their own political desires.
Columns: Urgent
