Re: <nettime> In Art we Trust

[Saul Albert <saul@theps.net>]

Hi David,


On 25 April 2014 16:01, d.garcia <d.garcia@new-tactical-research.co.uk>
 wrote:

> In Art We Trust

The trick KRB seem to be pulling off (whether Peperkamp knows it or not) is
to subordinate the ostensible artistic value of the coins as
artwork/commodities to the conceptual artistic value of the KRB enterprise.
As you point out, the success of that enterprise is premised on (and in
some ways subordinate to) its successful relationship with a broader art
market. Warhol would have been into that.

As I understand it these days, not-just-art was a way of thinking about art
that is at least potentially a universal signifier of value because its
social uses are maximally unconstrained by fixed properties (either
ostensibly intrinsic objective ones or ostensibly extrinsic societal ones).
Even more so than money, not-just-art (or generalised aesthetic value
attribution) becomes a universal signifier because it doesn't require the
apparatus of currency and capital that the KRB project is emulating. What
it does require is that it involves forms of social exchange and
organisation that engage critically with the normative structures of
culture: i.e. that pose reflective questions about how we - as individuals
and groups - attribute value and make choices. In this sense it's a Kantian
thing: it tests the boundaries of our freedoms to perceive, judge and act
at the boundaries of the subjective and the universal.

So to me the project seems to do this job as long as the coins are
circulating in the market while the KRB project circulates through the
ongoing discourse you're contributing to by publishing this article. Am I
right that you're pointing out the weakness of the currency component
without the conceptual framing of the KRB project? That the intrinsic
value, like a gold-backed-currency, depends on antiquated but persistent
value attributions? If so, I'm not sure your critique is really fair. The
artist-object / conceptual author-discourse dichotomy of the project and
the somewhat exploitative/naive relationship between them implied in the
way you quote Peperkamp's capricious selection criteria - taken together -
seem consistent enough with the trick they're pulling off to make Warhol
proud.

What would this project do/be if it were going to do/be more than 'just
art'?

Thanks again,

Saul.


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