ART MONTHLY PANEL DEBATE
Worlds within Worlds: the Institutions of Art

This event took place on July 15, 2006 at the Cornerhouse in Manchester

"If institutionalisation once lurked ominously in the distance for the avant-garde radical, today it is instantaneous, ubiquitous and unexceptional." Dave Beech

Are today's artists powerless to resist institutionalisation?

The Art Monthly panel will attempt to define the concepts of 'institutionalisation' in art and 'the institutions of art' and debate the changing practice of institutional critique, including the phenomenon of self-institutionalisation which, arguably, has superseded it.

Read the features in Art Monthly which inspired this panel by clicking on the links below.

Institutionalisation for all

Dave Beech tackles an old taboo
Institutionalisation in art is taboo. It is also rife. Art's institutions do not lag Behind contemporary practice as they typically have since the emergence of modernism and the avant garde. Funding, retrospectives, sales, monographs, prizes, major public works, honours, professorships and trusteeships are not restricted to old-timers these days. Young art is welcomed without delay into art's established institutions at a time when contemporary art is growing as an industry, extending its pull on the tourist economy, increasing the popular recognition of its leading practitioners (now celebrities) and developing global brands.
Read the full text of Dave Beech's feature

On Institutionalisation

Peter Suchin's response to Dave Beech's feature.
'Though Beech advocates challenging institutions such as museums and art schools from within as well as inventing new, genuinely alternative structures, the most difficult question is something upon which he does not touch: how can one institutionalise something that is by its very nature against institutions, practices, for example, which consciously and unreservedly challenge established - and establishment - positions and beliefs? Institutions are, practically by definition, exclusive and excluding, not open to invasion by what are deemed to be inappropriate or unruly entities or ideas.'
Read Peter Suchin's response

The Institution Within

It is impossible to exist outside the institution of art argues Lisa Le Feuvre:
Of course the artist is a part of the institution, as he or she exists as an identifiable agent within what is recognised as the realm of art, beginning with the art school as a training ground for would-be artists ... Complaining about art school is not radical - it is the standard. The institution of art is not simply in the apparatus of reception and distribution; it is also in the production and surrounding discourses.
Read Lisa Le Feuvre's feature

Museum Highlights: The Writings of Andrea Fraser

Reviewed by Sarah Thornton
The art historian Thomas Crow gave a lecture on 'Institutional Critique' at the Frieze Art Fair last October in which he declared: 'What we are missing is a model for how the art system operates, which is less about money than about recognition and validation.' The comment, which dangled uncomfortably and was not revisited, prefaced an erudite and thought-provoking talk in which he substituted the term 'competition' for 'critique.' By the end of the lecture, however, it was clear that Crow himself really needed a model, for without one his notion of 'competition' was as slippery as a wet fish. He was unable to differentiate between egotistical rivalry, social role conflict and institutional power struggles and, as a result, ended up depoliticising the artistic tradition associated with Hans Haacke, Michael Asher and Andrea Fraser.
Read Sarah Thornton's book review

ABOUT THE PANELLISTS

Art Monthly's editor Patricia Bickers chaired the debate and gave a short introduction reminding the audience of the diversity of institutions within the artworld which encompasses studio shows, artist-run spaces, art fairs, museums, galleries and commercial spaces as well as the more recent proliferation of university galleries.

Dave Beech is an artist, writer and lecturer. His feature 'Institutionalisation for All' started this ball rolling. In it he wrote: 'Institutionalisation in art is taboo. It is also rife. Art's institutions do not lag behind contemporary practice as they typically have since the emergence of Modernism and the Avant Garde. Funding, retrospectives, sales, monographs, prizes, major public works, honours, professorships and trusteeships are not restricted to old-timers these days. Young art is welcomed without delay into art's established institutions at a time when contemporary art is growing as an industry, extending its pull on the tourist economy, increasing the popular recognition of its leading practitioners (now celebrities) and developing global brands. If institutionalisation once lurked ominously in the distance for the avant-garde radical, today it is instantaneous, ubiquitous and unexceptional.' He will be developing some of the ideas he raised in the article in his presentation.

Sarah Thornton is a writer, ethnographer and Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths' College, University of London. She is working on a non-fiction narrative book about the contemporary art world for which she has conducted over 250 in-depth interviews and at least a thousand hours of participant observation. Each chapter is devoted to a different institution essential to understanding the way the art world works. This talk, based on work-in-progress, concentrates on the art school. Using Michael Asher's legendary Crit class as a case study, Thornton mulls over the questions: What is an artist? How do you become one? What exactly constitutes a critique?

Lisa Le Feuvre also teaches at Goldsmiths and is a critic and curator who has curated shows at almost every level. She will argue for the importance of 'dissent' in Dave Beech's terms in maintaining the very notion of the institution. Taking off from Foucault's writing 'On Govermentality', particularly his stress on the importance of legitimised dissent whereby the institution allows individuals to let off steam as a means of containment, she will relate this to Pierre Bourdieu's writings on the structure of the art world in relation to wider structures of power and governmentality. She will emphasise the importance of not becoming distracted by interrogating systems at the loss of thinking through artistic practice and will illustrate her talk with references to the work of Hans Haacke, Tatham and O'Sullivan, Felix Gonzales-Torres, Andrea Fraser and Tino Sehgal.

Jakob Jakobsen is an artist. He will talk about 'self-institutionalistation' with specific reference to two projects that he has been directly involved in namely the Info Centre formerly based in London and the Copenhagen Free University in Denmark. The origin and current application of the term remains a hotly contested one within the field of institutional critique and theory, we welcome therefore Jakobsen's offer of further contextualisation. See http://www.infopool.org.uk/ for more information.