2010 No3
June / July

His decision to allow his career as an artist to be incorporated into a business, in the same way that Andy Warhol did with his Factory, has a cynical twist. Xu Zhen, one of China's most critical artists, in fact denies that his decision to continue his activities as the company, MadeIn, with its associated unlimited art production and corresponding company profit, can be viewes as a trap / windfall for the market. Xu Zhen sees it more as a self-reflective experiment, a critical act, fed up as he is with the cult of the individual artist and the person-orientated market mechanisms it brings with it. He is claiming a different role for himself, of art director or producer, which he hopes will bring him more freedom of action. It is his way of giving his art greater social significance.

Xu Zhen is not the only artist portrayed in this issue who is intent on finding a different, broader role for artists in society. He was proceded in the 1960s by the Artist Placement Group, who linked artists with industries where they carried out artistic activities for the companies and were paid salaries. The APG certainly set a precedent, given the large number of artists who are today involved in all kinds of niches in society, outside the exhibition circuits. In the Netherlands, many artists are working at the intersection of public and private, on projects that are not simply funded by art budgets.

We now take stock, at a point when the question of the position of art and artists in society rings ever louder. Art is expected to defend itself in terms of its value and meaning, now that the Dutch government is having to severely rein in the purse strings. There is no easy answer (we will be looking more into this in future issues), but if there is one thing that is already clear in the magazine before you, it is that reducing art to a creature that is worthy of funding and deserving of more and more tax money is far too simplistic. Happily, art is much larger, broader and more intangible than contemporary subsidy resources admit. I am not worried about the future of art, but all the more concerned about the future of politics.

- Domeniek Ruyters