Neoliberalism and the Visual: Notes on a Politics of Refusal (1)
Thursday, 1 December 2022 at 12:00:00 am UTC
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Session Convenors
Dr Chari Larsson, Griffith University
Session Speakers
Grace Slonim, Monash University
Dr Amy Carkeek, Griffith University
Dr Alexsandr Wansbrough, University of Sydney
In the wake of the global financial crisis in 2008, increasing scholarly attention is now being paid to neoliberalism’s social and ideological agendas. If neoliberalism is understood in its narrowest sense, as a set of economic policies, we risk neglecting the extent that it has fostered new forms of social relations and subjectivities. With its emphasis on productivity and enterprise, what are neoliberalism’s invisibilising tendencies? What other forms of subjectivities are ignored or forgotten because they are not valued or promoted?
In line with the conference theme of ‘demonstration’, the aim of this panel is to investigate neoliberalism’s engagement with the visual, broadly imagined. What opportunities exist for visual arts practitioners for critique and disruption of neoliberalism’s normative frameworks?
Are you running a business, or a charity? Ruminations on artist remuneration
Grace Slonim, Monash University
Sustainable remuneration for artistic labour can be difficult to achieve due to neoliberal agendas that seek to define the artistic profession in market terms. This presentation therefore posits that the Australian visual artist responds to this denominating perspective by operating within the cultural landscape as a hybrid mode of commercial and charitable operations. In attempting to navigate remuneration for their work, this presentation therefore explores the dichotomous relationship the artist has with the charitable and commercial sectors. It first considers the economic impact of an artist defining their work exclusively within terms of cultural entrepreneurship. It argues that such a framework does not mitigate the issue of underpayment as economic metrics are too narrow to capture the extent of artistic output. Conversely, an evaluation of the problems with defining the artistic profession as a charitable service will demonstrate how the reality of the funding landscape financially disadvantages the artist as charitable entity. This presentation culminates in a proposition of resistance to defining artistic labour in these ways and looks instead towards alternative modes of practice where sustainable remuneration can be achieved outside of this paradigm.
The Despair of Taxidermy and the Longing for An Imaginary Past and a Lost Future
Dr Amy Carkeek, Griffith University
Taxidermy, traditionally used as a method for preserving life, is a nostalgic ‘souvenir’ of our human longing for eternal existence. This sentimentalisation of the past and a deceptively simpler time is a condition of contemporary neoliberalism and the need to keep society anchored within a previous era to ensure continued optimism for an impossible future. However, Western society may now be situated at a crossroads, unable to return to the fantasy of an industrialised post–World War Two period or advance into the post-neoliberal illusion of limitless expansion and wealth. We are, it would appear, fixed in the present and in a strange and liminal state. This paper seeks to examine the taxidermy ‘animal thing’that is both dead and alive, existing in the past and the presentas an object that epitomises all that is wrong with the world while also being the desired thing that conceals that such a reality exists. To do so, this paper analyses contemporary readymade artworks that employ taxidermy as objects of longing, and it asks how their newly formed juxtapositions might expose some of the inherent fractures in the contemporary neoliberal condition.
Playing Neoliberalism: Public Playable Sculpture and Resisting the Neoliberal State
Dr Alexsandr Wansbrough, University of Sydney
Public Art is often derided as "plonk art", as art lacking "risk". This paper argues that the rise of bland public art in part correlates with the emergence of what David Harvey calls the "neoliberal state", whereby the state's interventions are restricted to sourcing market opportunities and public programs are subjected to means-testing. There has been an increased attack on "needless", "wasteful”, or "offensive" taxpayer funded art coterminous with the rise of neoliberalism. This tendency has in turn incentivized the rise of inoffensive, publicly useful sculptural works, which perversely have been castigated as too bland, insufficiently adventurous and un-aesthetic. Yet there are a number of curious public art sculptures that rely on active engagement, that aim to function both as artworks and as sculptures suitable for childhood play. At first, playable public sculptures may seem to reflect the ultimate aim of responsible public expenditure: art that serves a public function. However, they can also offer resistance. Take the sculptural works of Mike Hewson which provide a playable art that allow children to take risks. Often eschewing physical safety concerns, Hewson's playscapes are artistic utopias defying neoliberal strictures.
Biographies
Dr Chari Larsson, Griffith University
Dr. Chari Larsson is a Senior Lecturer in art history at Griffith University's Queensland College of Art. Chari is the author of Didi-Huberman and the image (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020).
Grace Slonim, Monash University
Grace Slonim is a PhD Candidate and Teaching Associate at Monash University. Her research examines the landscape of visual arts funding, with a particular focus on mapping the terrain of what an artist can do within the current model to financially support the continuation of their creative practice. Grace has extensive experience across the arts sector, from her current work as Teaching Associate to working in areas of Fundraising and Philanthropy for all sizes of arts organisations. In all that she does Grace works to ensure that more art markers are financially equipped for their work to thrive.
Dr Amy Carkeek, Queensland College of Art
Dr Amy Carkeek is an artist and researcher who explores the commodity image and found domestic object as mediators of neoliberal narratives and values that contribute to methods of control. Amy is a lecturer in photography at Queensland College of Art.
Dr Alexsandr Wansbrough, University of Sydney
Aleks Wansbrough is an affiliated lecturer at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, and Adjunct Professor at Bennett University, India. His interests include the politics of culture, art, cinema, digital media and the aesthetic implications of neoliberalism. Wansbrough is the author of Capitalism and the Enchanted Screen (Bloomsbury, 2021), an editor of the Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture, published by Penn State Press, and the secretary of the Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand (PopCAANZ). He is also an artist working with photography and video.