Johan & Levi: Saggi d'arte

For at least a decade now, the Western art system has found itself faced in the international arena with new players who appear to want to play according to rules of their own making. The first inklings of change came in the 1980s, when art became a financial opportunity of global potential. Thanks to the use of more accessible languages, postmodern art appealed to increasingly vast audiences, prospering as it expanded onto new terrain: the soaring art market paved the way for the artwork becoming a status symbol, and a broadening of horizons to include countries like China, Russia and India, in search of recognition on the Western stage. The euphoria of that period, however, was soon dampened by the current climate of uncertainty, caused by the break-up of the old system and the declassing of its constituent parts – the intellectual component (the critics, who lent legitimacy to artistic practices) and the institutional component (the museums, which conserved the works for posterity). The current measure of success is the speculative spirit – in all senses – of the new players, who, with the ease of those used to wielding hefty amounts of capital, lay down the law in the closed circuit of gallery-collector-auction house-museum. Even artists, previously the system’s driving force, risk being reduced to the status of mere cogs in the machine. Well aware of the setting they operate in, they have acquiesced to the impoverishment brought about by globalisation: while in the past they sought to innovate, now they stick firmly to linguistic standards that are instantly recognisable in all corners of the globe. In this short work of global scope, which surveys the past in order to have insight into the complex transformations under way in the present, Marco Meneguzzo identifies the dividing line between before and after, namely between art as exclusive and elitist and art as a popular, globalised phenomenon, envisaging a future that wavers between a soft process of change in the art system and the conception of art itself, and a more apocalyptic scenario.

Begun in 2006 and closed down by the authorities three years later, the blog of the artist and architect Ai Weiwei came to attention at the international level as one of the most courageous cultural and political acts in contemporary China. An implacable critic of the ruling class in the tradition of the “public intellectuals” of the 20th century, Ai took up in his writings the demands for pluralism stifled in bloodshed in Tiananmen Square in 1989, using the Internet to protest against the material and moral consequences – concealed by the regime’s propaganda – of the Chinese model of development: the lack of political rights, the savage exploitation of labour, the destruction of the environment and historical memory, the violent repression of minorities, the arrogance and impunity of the rich and powerful, and the rigid control over public opinion. Defying censorship, Ai Weiwei created an unprecedented form of civil and cultural resistance. His posts alternate criticism and protest, discuss the latest artistic developments, mercilessly expose official hypocrisy and use humour and polemical verve to lay bare the lies, cynicism and resignation inculcated by an establishment that combines paternalism and harsh repression to keep its citizens in a state of eternal infancy in which the rituals of consumerism have replaced the permanent mobilization of Mao’s era. Now translated into Italian, Ai Weiwei’s blog also constitutes proof of the power of art as a tool of resistance and regeneration. Renewing the impulse of the modern avant-garde, his digital diary becomes a means of collective mobilization, a “social sculpture” that transcends the boundaries of traditional creativity to raise urgent questions about the role and responsibility of the artist, the spectator and indeed all of us. A living sculpture, an agent of transformation of the world thanks to which the dimension of the multitude that characterizes our social field can acquire self-awareness and discover its strength, finding the essential value of truth once again and with it the possibility of a different time and space in keeping with the needs of more complete and freer human beings.

«Il concetto di classico è migrato altrove, fra i libri, dove sopravvive, a dire il vero, egregiamente e dove prospera secondo gli umori delle diverse epoche. Quando si è molto romantici torna forse meno utile, poiché gran parte delle energie letterarie, esistenziali e politiche sono rivolte all’azione. Quando si è più inclini alle incertezze prende vigore maggiore. E la nostra è un’epoca poco certa dove il conforto dei classici torna utile. È questo il percorso che Ginzberg offre di sabato sulle pagine frugali del Foglio a chi ha voglia di riflettere. Parte egli da un dettaglio della cronaca recente e tenta con abilità da retore dell’epoca imperiale di trovare non la citazione (lo fanno in molti con un buon dizionario) ma il modello classico che su quel dato contingente getta la luce del pensiero di sempre, o meglio d’una certezza che la sanzione della storia ha dato all’opera di riferimento. E a un tratto la nostra quotidianità, che spesso reputiamo in modo non del tutto illegittimo essere fra le più sciocche della storia dell’umanità, ebbene questa quotidianità replicata ossessivamente dalla carta e dall’etere entra in un epos carico di echi. Prende dignità di storia per il fatto solo di poter essere paragonata a ciò che storia è diventato, e quindi classico.» (Dalla prefazione di Philippe Daverio)