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Inhabiting Aporia

Audience Participation in Contemporary Art

Beth Jackson
Eyeline 78/79
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Could it be that after so much ‘shock of the new’ contemporary art practice is feeling like an ageing adolescent, an old rock star? Perhaps its own shock tactics have left it alienated—and being a social outsider it has lost romantic appeal. Or perhaps it is that the stage-play of the mega-museums, biennales and blockbusters, and the mediation of cutting edge curators, has alienated art beyond its own intention? Audiences are confronted with the interface of exhibition—the gallery, the festival, the opening and closing events, the talk fests and so on—and the artworks themselves seem almost secondary effects.

Once the ‘artist as outsider’ was key to a critical interpolation of the viewer into the artwork. By this I mean that viewing art was a means of seeing the world ‘from the outside’, through the eyes of the artist who somehow did not have the same sense of belonging and ownership, who did not need to defend the status quo. Certainly this is true of modernism and describes the political imperative of the avant garde. But it may also be true of postmodernity where the discourses of the status quo (notions of a public good) are no longer produced by the state but are only managed by the state, privatised and outsourced in chains of post-Fordist production. In a postmodern environment, much contemporary art seeks to expose, confront and challenge these neo-liberal strategies, continuing the avant garde project ‘from the outside’ as it were. Art remains one of the few public discourses which has critical capacity. However it is becoming increasingly obvious and felt that the practice of art and the position of the artist is not ‘outside’ and is subject... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline

Jay Younger, Logan Hypno Grind, 2011

Jay Younger, Logan Hypno Grind, 2011. Video still, Hollywood Hypno Grind, detail The Lady Eve, 1941, Barbara Stanwyck, Peter Fonda and crazy horse. Mixed media and video installation, dimensions variable. Photograph Jay Younger. Courtesy the artist. 

Jay Younger, Logan Hypno Grind, 2011

Jay Younger, Logan Hypno Grind, 2011. Mixed media and video installation, dimensions variable. Photograph Jay Younger. Courtesy the artist.