THE BRAND CONCEPT :
First, I must sincerely thank the CNAP jury for awarding me with a research grant to develop what has been sketched in these newsletters.
I’m particularly grateful, since, if I hid the name of the artist in “missing the point”, I didn’t hide their name.
After the thanks a mea culpa:
As I was checking the strict application of my method in this series of newsletters: only art mediation texts and nothing about the actual works or artists, I realized that, with Benoît Maire, I actually failed to follow it.
I should therefore come back to Lyotard’s notion of “différend”, which he uses in a series of work called “Esthétique des Différends”. I understood it to be a very practical approach to the contemporary unsolvable political and social “double bind”. A mother excising her daughter is acting for her own good. A group of men who try and kill a nine year old girl, who wants to study, are acting for the good of their community, the Ouma. How can we, Westerners judge them, since we do not have the same law? But I’m sure you know about the dilemma. When it’s happening far, it’s far. When it’s happening near you, it gets more complicated. Don’t we accept that our neighbours veil their women and ask them to lower their eyes, on the grounds that we do not want to stigmatise a disadvantaged community? In fact, what I suspect we mostly fear, is that men (from this community and other ones…), get annoyed and violent. We do not really fear women getting stigmatised, do we? As that’s what they are already, by wearing the mark of their inferiority.
I do not recognize this terrifying “double bind”, this acceptation, powerlessness or submission in Benoît Maire’s “Esthétique des Différends”. And that’s quite normal, for it is mine. It’s my anger, my rebellion. It’s my political impotence. I therefore acknowledge that I was wrong on several levels:
Why shouldn’t one use this notion of “différend” in design, in a seductive manner? Why would I refuse the gentleness of this type of production, this subtle Parisian charm? Why do I react violently to this refined and good taste? Why should become loud faced with this discreet, not-loutish and not-vulgar approach of a theoretical notion that I did not invent? Why bring my insubordination here, when I haven’t been asked anything? It’s his work, not mine. If I think about the little girl who was excised or the one nearly killed for wanting to study, it’s that my reading of this notion is too specific. Too personal. Projecting my anger onto something that does not belong to me is maybe as specific as projecting your own good taste onto... something else. Mea culpa.
But now, let’s go somewhere else.
In what follows, the sign X doesn’t have any porn connotation. It’s just a way to hide names. A false/fake unknown.
On its website, linked to X, a famous French Newspaper, X1 presents itself as "An hyphen between brands and cultural actors (…) The agency that cultivates brand." I’m not sure the play on words works as well in English as it does in French… even if it’s not really funny. Their first link is “Culture: the stake of communication" as in what is at stake in communication…The skate is the bet on the poker table. It’s what we can loose or win. So how could culture be what brands could win or loose? Shoudn’t they be talking about their reputation, their corporate image, their taxes, their relationships with their employees, local authorities or their ability to hide degrading practices. Would they be mixing up stake with tool, or means with goal? Misunderstanding as tactics? Strategic confusion?
- I wouldn’t know.
On another communication agency website I found a weird presentation of a weird current group exhibition “X2” by the curator X3.
“The concept of "brands", which controls economy of the market finds its formal manifestation in the creation of all sort of logos, signs and slogans and is taking over our everyday life. Numerous artists take up commercial brand, in order to exploit their plastic power, or raise them as a semaphore of the contemporary world. Simple re-use of an aesthetic? More or less disguised critique of a system? Strong will to change life? "It’s the viewer who makes the art work,” said Marcel Duchamp. Everyone in turn can thus invest art productions, whereas they are public or private, audience or entrepreneur..."
I will be very careful here. I will not derogate from my rules. I will only add a few more questions.
What does the uahout mean by the economy of the market? Is it the art market, the brands market, or does he actually mean the market economy?
- I don't know.
What does "public or private" stand for here? In French, "public" also means audience, but it’s not clear in the original version if it’s what is meant. Is it "public" as "accessible to all" or "concerning the government"? As for private, it’s even more bizarre… Personal? Intimate? Confidential? Not belonging to the government?
- I wouldn’t know.
A member of the audience, I see who you mean, but entrepreneur, who is it? Is this the person whose enterprise will be to make the work? Is it another word for businessman? Is is the person that maked logos take over our everyday life? Or is it just a rich person? A client maybe? Then why not say collector? Very strange as the space putting on the show defines itself as a gallery, which does whish to sell. As for the “or” in “member of the audience or entrepreneur”, does it refer to an opposition or can you be both...
- I don’t know.
Is it also this “private or public, spectator or entrepreneur” Duchampian viewer, who will deal with the aesthetical re-use of logos? Is it them who assert a strong will to change life? Are they more in charge of this critique of the system or less than the artist? Are we close to what another French artist X4 claims he’s doing on his website: “The artist stages contemporaries ideologies, (…) taking viewers to realize by themselves the absurdity of their own action”.
I won't go into the rules of the "concept" of brand in economy of the market! Oups, I placed the inverted commas around concept instead of brand. I must stop now. This is way too slippery… and forgive my English mistakes...
I’m particularly grateful, since, if I hid the name of the artist in “missing the point”, I didn’t hide their name.
After the thanks a mea culpa:
As I was checking the strict application of my method in this series of newsletters: only art mediation texts and nothing about the actual works or artists, I realized that, with Benoît Maire, I actually failed to follow it.
I should therefore come back to Lyotard’s notion of “différend”, which he uses in a series of work called “Esthétique des Différends”. I understood it to be a very practical approach to the contemporary unsolvable political and social “double bind”. A mother excising her daughter is acting for her own good. A group of men who try and kill a nine year old girl, who wants to study, are acting for the good of their community, the Ouma. How can we, Westerners judge them, since we do not have the same law? But I’m sure you know about the dilemma. When it’s happening far, it’s far. When it’s happening near you, it gets more complicated. Don’t we accept that our neighbours veil their women and ask them to lower their eyes, on the grounds that we do not want to stigmatise a disadvantaged community? In fact, what I suspect we mostly fear, is that men (from this community and other ones…), get annoyed and violent. We do not really fear women getting stigmatised, do we? As that’s what they are already, by wearing the mark of their inferiority.
I do not recognize this terrifying “double bind”, this acceptation, powerlessness or submission in Benoît Maire’s “Esthétique des Différends”. And that’s quite normal, for it is mine. It’s my anger, my rebellion. It’s my political impotence. I therefore acknowledge that I was wrong on several levels:
Why shouldn’t one use this notion of “différend” in design, in a seductive manner? Why would I refuse the gentleness of this type of production, this subtle Parisian charm? Why do I react violently to this refined and good taste? Why should become loud faced with this discreet, not-loutish and not-vulgar approach of a theoretical notion that I did not invent? Why bring my insubordination here, when I haven’t been asked anything? It’s his work, not mine. If I think about the little girl who was excised or the one nearly killed for wanting to study, it’s that my reading of this notion is too specific. Too personal. Projecting my anger onto something that does not belong to me is maybe as specific as projecting your own good taste onto... something else. Mea culpa.
But now, let’s go somewhere else.
In what follows, the sign X doesn’t have any porn connotation. It’s just a way to hide names. A false/fake unknown.
On its website, linked to X, a famous French Newspaper, X1 presents itself as "An hyphen between brands and cultural actors (…) The agency that cultivates brand." I’m not sure the play on words works as well in English as it does in French… even if it’s not really funny. Their first link is “Culture: the stake of communication" as in what is at stake in communication…The skate is the bet on the poker table. It’s what we can loose or win. So how could culture be what brands could win or loose? Shoudn’t they be talking about their reputation, their corporate image, their taxes, their relationships with their employees, local authorities or their ability to hide degrading practices. Would they be mixing up stake with tool, or means with goal? Misunderstanding as tactics? Strategic confusion?
- I wouldn’t know.
On another communication agency website I found a weird presentation of a weird current group exhibition “X2” by the curator X3.
“The concept of "brands", which controls economy of the market finds its formal manifestation in the creation of all sort of logos, signs and slogans and is taking over our everyday life. Numerous artists take up commercial brand, in order to exploit their plastic power, or raise them as a semaphore of the contemporary world. Simple re-use of an aesthetic? More or less disguised critique of a system? Strong will to change life? "It’s the viewer who makes the art work,” said Marcel Duchamp. Everyone in turn can thus invest art productions, whereas they are public or private, audience or entrepreneur..."
I will be very careful here. I will not derogate from my rules. I will only add a few more questions.
What does the uahout mean by the economy of the market? Is it the art market, the brands market, or does he actually mean the market economy?
- I don't know.
What does "public or private" stand for here? In French, "public" also means audience, but it’s not clear in the original version if it’s what is meant. Is it "public" as "accessible to all" or "concerning the government"? As for private, it’s even more bizarre… Personal? Intimate? Confidential? Not belonging to the government?
- I wouldn’t know.
A member of the audience, I see who you mean, but entrepreneur, who is it? Is this the person whose enterprise will be to make the work? Is it another word for businessman? Is is the person that maked logos take over our everyday life? Or is it just a rich person? A client maybe? Then why not say collector? Very strange as the space putting on the show defines itself as a gallery, which does whish to sell. As for the “or” in “member of the audience or entrepreneur”, does it refer to an opposition or can you be both...
- I don’t know.
Is it also this “private or public, spectator or entrepreneur” Duchampian viewer, who will deal with the aesthetical re-use of logos? Is it them who assert a strong will to change life? Are they more in charge of this critique of the system or less than the artist? Are we close to what another French artist X4 claims he’s doing on his website: “The artist stages contemporaries ideologies, (…) taking viewers to realize by themselves the absurdity of their own action”.
I won't go into the rules of the "concept" of brand in economy of the market! Oups, I placed the inverted commas around concept instead of brand. I must stop now. This is way too slippery… and forgive my English mistakes...
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