Formation through Envisioning and Artworld Public:

Identifying Members as Citizens and the Artworld as a Nation

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By Con Cabrera

 

Published in TRAFFIC Vol. 1 a joint publication of MIKI LTD. and Project Space Pilipinas.

 

Michael Warner declared that “a public is poetic world making” because “all discourse of performance addressed to a public must characterize the world in which it attempts to circulate, and it must attempt to realize that world through address.” For him, a public sphere where there is intent to be inhabited, there should have discourses of performance addressed to the public, to which “the recognition of participants and their further circulatory activity” is essential to be fruitful. The stimulus to respond to such imagination of a public articulated in this essay comes from circulating interrogations in the local art sphere: Why are there no artist organizations here that can look after artists’ welfare? Why is it hard to organize artists even if they have common concerns and expressions of intent? How can we get members of the artworld involved in initiatives, discourses or projects directed towards them, will benefit or question them, and which require their participation? Other queries also entail a unified or communication of voice/s manifested in works, literature or action. As an initial phase in understanding this predicament, we have to acknowledge how the artworld bestows membership. 

 

                  In Arthur Danto’s 1964 seminal essay The Artworld, he laid out the groundwork for identifying artworks through a matrix that subverts the more traditional concepts of his time. Through his philosophical presentation, he negotiated a mode of world building in the cultural sphere where characters are placed in a position of membership through acknowledging “an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art.” In previous attempts to understand the present artworld in the context of the Philippine contemporary art, I used Danto’s concept of “artistic identification,” to isolate some of its members particularly the art practitioners (artists, curators, writers, those involved in the production of art, etc.). The main guiding principles were discerning the “defining traits” and enumerating “relevant predicates.” The defining traits were identified through the person’s history and context, including but not limited to educational background, work with/within an institution, training through practice, and mentorship experience. The relevant predicates were classified through the person’s display of knowledge of history of art and artistic theories as reflected by his or her exhibitions, awards, projects, publications, etc. “Persons, like artworks, must then be taken as irreducible to partsof themselves, and are in the sense primitive… The greater the variety of artistically relevant predicates, the more complex the individual member of the artworld become; and the more one knows of the entire population of the artworld, the richer one’s experience with any of its members.” 

 

Second, to further map these members, it is therefore sensible to consider the larger perspective, this time through the concept of citizenship discussed by Maria Serena Diokno in her essay Becoming a Filipino Citizenship: Perspectives on Citizenship and Democracy. To understand and define the current state of the art practitioners’ in relation to a broader population, it is essential also that we define and redefine the roles in order to stimulate a holistic artworld. Through this attempt of framing the member of the artworld as citizen, we have to identifying the parameters of its “nation”. In Diokno’s essay, the “nation” is equated to the larger community wherein the member/citizen belongs. It is the “conventionally accepted source of common identity and the focal point of a citizen’s loyalty.”  For the purpose of this creative exercise, the “nation” is equated to the “artworld.” It was also raised that the “local community too deserves a place in the citizen’s nexus of loyalty, pride and identity;” therefore it is essential to acknowledge that within the artworld as nation, there also exists a cluster of local communities. These communities can be identified through the diversity of the members and what constitute their identities. 

 

                  There is also the same problematic on the citizens/members identification with the nation/artworld, on how the members do not readily identify and how dependent the situation is with whom the artworld serves, who benefits from it, and who are its instruments. In Diokno’s essay, it was also mentioned that perceptions of citizenship differ due to “the culture and history of the community, the sectoral affiliation, and the access to the benefits of citizenship.” She mentioned that to define a society, there has to be creation of solidarity and democratic values. The society in the artworld may mean its general population inclusive of players who are not necessarily producers of art such as consumers, gallery owners, influencers, traders, etc. Which implies that the solidarity mentioned depends on the commitment of all members to a specified goal or common good and socially just. The democratic values required in the artworld are not related to a political structure or government building, but to the core principles that comprise the essence of democracy. These are pluralism/diversity, citizenship, and human rights. If in operation, these three should and can exercise dialogue and debate to make informed choices that is pre-requisite to democracy. In the society described by Diokno, two sub-levels co-exist: the immediate community with which one readily identifies one’s self; and the larger, intimate grouping of which one is a member, however inactive or detached.  In relation to the artworld, these sub-levels similarly apply. The first level relates to the core groups wherein a member may identify with, considering factors such as educational background, institutional affiliations, or social sphere.  Educational background can cover the art school where the member has studied, like how graduates of UPCFA tend to gravitate towards fellow UP alumni and are often in the same exhibitions or gather in the same places for socials. Institutional affiliations can come in forms of gallery representations, wherein some commercial galleries have a roster of members to show and care for in terms of their careers. These galleries also have specific followings and however overlapping, institutional affiliations create a substantial bearing when faced with career decisions. The social sphere is also a building block of the immediate community, wherein relationships tended matter and can influence community direction through initiatives and other activities. The second level of the intimate grouping can come in the form of discipline, form or type of art produced, schools of thought, or affiliations that are bestowed either by critical writings or of history. One example is the community of street art. Some members who have gained expanded attention from commercial galleries may now be inactive members of the community, but if street art is the roots of their current practices, however detached, they are still members of that community. 

 

                  In both contexts of the nation and the artworld, citizenship/membership identifies more with “communitarian values that prevail in all matters of collective concern like the choice of leaders, sharing of resources and the resolution of conflict.” Therefore, some members may more likely extend help or share access to, even actual resources, to their immediate community rather than have an evaluation of who needs those first. An instance that comes to mind is the silence of the artworld in the issue of Kuloin 2011. There was no statement of solidarity released because not most members of the artworld related to Mideo Cruz’s nature of art even if what transpired has threatened those members’ right to free expression. The concept of multilayered affiliation also comes into play. If citizens are often affiliated through clan or kinship, ethnic group, religious beliefs, political affiliation, or identity with nation, members of the artworld connect themselves with their group of art friends, type of outputs and similarity of interests, schools of thought, and also political affiliation in the case of social realists and activist artists. This identification also varies according to the extent of access to opportunities and other benefits of membership.

 

                  Diokno also mentioned in her essay the existence of “hierarchical structures”, which she states as not generally supportive of democratic values, but only breed patronage and dependence. This idea of such structure cannot be dismissed even if it is better for the artworld if it does not exist. If in the state, there are “few places where people can develop these capacities,” the artworld has a long history of initiatives and efforts, which attempts to disregard this hierarchy and have carved out self-initiated opportunities to help fellow members. The hierarchy in the artworld also shifts depending its current condition considering global influences, economic factors, interpretation of history, and even interventions of dominant members. 

 

                  Now, taking into account the concepts discussed as frameworks for the imagined publics in and of the artworld, it’s also evident that membership is a spectrum and that there are critical terms left untangled. Diokno’s essay, while useful in basic structuring of this attempt to envision a group of members, also exposed the limitations in understanding the complexity of citizenship in a nation, therefore membership in an artworld. Further study is needed to disentangle the reasons why we are what we are and how we are in instances of strong demands to become effective citizens/members. Przeworski verbalized this in his concept that effective citizenship includes generating “a sense of solidarity that connects the individual citizen to a broad political community of others and organizes other belongings in a way that enriches that community.” Plotting it to the artworld domain, effective and proactive membership should embrace a creation of a sense of camaraderie that connects each member to the larger community composed of a variety of other members and manages efforts to improve the welfare of that community. Formation then goes beyond mere quantification of a segment of the public, but also extends to the effectivity and proactivity of this segment to propel the development of an empowered nation/artworld of citizens/members with awareness and understanding of self and community.

 

References:

 

Danto, Arthur. (1964). The Artworld. The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 61, Issue 19, American Philosophical Association

     Eastern Division Sixty-First Annual Meeting: The Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

 

Diokno, Maria Serena I. (1997) Becoming a Filipino Citizen: Perspectives on Citizenship And Democracy. Democracy

     and Citizenship in Filipino Political Culture. Third World Studies Center

 

Principles Underpinning Democracy. Embracing Commonwealth Values in Youth Development.Retrieved from

     www.colelearning.net/cyp/unit3/page4.html. Retrieved on 4 Oct 2017