Serge Guibault:
"Why am I here? I am wondering myself. It is because I have been working on the relationship between Europe and the United States in the art scene, the cultural scene from 1944 to 1956. I am writing a book right now about this period, and about this area, and I have been working in the past in several books. I wrote a book that made some kind of noise in particular in the United States, but also in France, was {How New York stole the idea of Modern Ar}t, it was how the center of the art world shifted from Europe into the US in the 50’s.
What I do in my work is to confront the art production, the cultural production and also the politics that is behind or in it. Usually in the art history, in the old days, that is when I was a kid, we could not talk about politics and art together. It was terrible. So when I started that with a bunch of friends, when I was at Los Angeles in the 70’s, we did that, we did a lot of rewriting of the history of the postwar period. It was kind of exiting and interesting, I have done this since then, well we as a group, we tried to rewrite art history in a sense, and we had some success in some degree.
This book I am writing now is about looking at the French situation in the postwar period and the Parisian situation. What I do realize is that when you look at the Parisian situation, art situation, through the lens of that address described, through a social art history, then we realize that other voices were screaming in France at that time, but we couldn’t hear it because of the framework of the art establishment in Paris. Of course when you start to learn about Paris in the postwar, there is one thing that it’s happening right away, and is the notion of the cold war. At that time, you had only one possibility, in America for example, to be a good artist it was to be part of this modernist abstract expressionist trend, because it was talking about freedom. In France it was much more complicated, because the communist was very strong, like in Italy. The Americans were trying to convince Europe that they were the king of the world, because they had the atomic bomb, the army, the money, the economy and so on, and they also wanted to have culture. So they tried to impose, impose I would say (the Americans don’t like that word), impose their view in Europe, and particularly in France and Italy, because as I said they were divided and the communist party on both countries was very strong.
In a kind of a global era, globalization helps us to say let’s go back and look at the complexity of the situation. Before globalization we thought only of two centers or three centers, three countries were ever important, now we realized Latin America becomes very hot, Asia is great and Africa, so now we got to the point where we don’t know where to go, we are so confused now. But I think it’s more interesting to analyze in each country in each identity itself, the complexity of their identities.
We are a little bit naïf when we talk about globalization, opening up and so on and so for. We can say we don’t have centers of creation, of production, but we have centers, and very powerful, of distribution. The United States are still very strong about that. Paris is still very strong at distribution. China is very strong at buying. The battle between Paris and New York during the cold war was about who is going to represent the universalization of art, culture, beauty. This is the old concept of the XIX century. Paris established itself in the XIX century as the center of universal force, and America wanted to have that, and they managed to do it, because of this, as I was saying, the strong new market, money off course, but also very strong art criticism, and they knew how to write about it and also they knew how to promote it. And the French were all divided and fighting among themselves. In the US, because of the politics of it, because of McCarthy, because of the division between reaction and the real liberals, the liberal take over MoMA, and so they say this is the movement we have to defend, because this represent freedom.
It seems to me that we are in a moment now where we are reassessing all this. We are wondering what type of art history should we be doing and why. We never ask the question about why we write art history? Why? Why we need a department? Why do we need museums for? Why?
The role of what we used to call intellectuals in the old days, art historians, art critics (who don’t exist anymore), writers or whatever, is that you have to ask the question of why do I do this. For money or to change the world? I know it’s an utopian; we are not going to change the world, but a bit. I always say it’s not going to be better, but we have to try to be not as bad.
It is true that modernist was so strong, was so powerful and taking over and shooting up all kinds of people, that is why gay studies, and feminine studies, and so on, were important, that is what is called the postmodern, outside this modern framework and the grid, and so on. Now we are post – postmodern because we realized we are out of those boxes I was describing before. So now we have to reevaluate all this and start to have a different type of mixing and discussion. The problem was that at the beginning of feminism, of gay studies for that matter too, is that all those blocks they were saying: well we want a part of the cake. But I always say, when we know that the cake is rotten, why do we want a part of it?
We have to kind of reevaluate museums and the role of museums. We have seen a change in museums completely, I mean, it was clear to see the change with museums in the 1990’s where the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and then we realized that what was happening there, and Guggenheim understood that very well, is that the world of the museum was changing, in a form, still aristocratic environment where the people would go there were already aware of the artists, the trends, modernism, so they didn’t have to say too much in the museum. You have the white cube and you have these stuff, and you knew already. So the public was there, and that is what the museum of modern art understood at the middle of the 1930’s , and that’s why people copied that, and they produced a Museum of Modern Art.
Then what happened in the 1990’s is that there is a booming of tourism, and it was like a large explosion of the middle class, a huge amount of people is coming, so you have to change the mentality of the museum, the way you structure your shows, the way you talk to the people, is was a way way different, but are the museums doing this? No. Museums have become like the tradition of the circus in the US. In the 19th century you buy a show somewhere, the show comes in, and you take out all the clowns and they make all this staff, wow, wow! And the people clap! Eh!! Don’t understand a thing, and they go somewhere to the next city. I think we have to react to this, because we are not puppets, people are not dumb, in the first place, but we are dumbing down the public in a way that is very tragic. Because when the public is down you cannot have a democracy, and when the public is not educated you are not open. And I think it is a dramatic situation that we are now, and museums are responsible for, let’s say 25%.
There was a song, 2000 actually, yea Red Hot Chilli Peppers, that in the text they are talking about Californian culture, Hollywood culture, that produces always the same thing, and copies, and fake, and superficial, with nothing in it, that was 2000 and in order to kind of show again, to show that France was still powerfull, they did one conference a day, for a year. So I was part one day, auditorium, thousands of people, packed, every single day, including Christmas, and after that they published several, eight volume I think, like the new encyclopedia for the new century. That type of stuff is fantastic. Because you can see, when you get into the auditorium, and the debate you have afterwards with the public is not dumb at all, and so that’s what we always forget, and museum forgets all the time. And so that’s why, californication was about that, we are being californicated, all the time, so wake up, do something about this. And those guys were right, those Chilli Peppers, they should keep singing.
We are working in history. I mean, we are working into this. So we are producing history. So that is why it is quite fascinating and fabulous to be able to have a dialogue with the artists, but some artists they don’t understand that, I mean you don’t believe in things, you just try to make sense of it, and to understand it and to get a report with the artists. But some of them do not agree, they did not allow that. And the problem for example with artists and museums is that artists and museums do not want to have anything negative. For example you cannot produce a negative show at the museum.
I had this experience with the director (she was a friend of mine), the director of the New Museum in New York in the 1990’s. She once said: “Oh Serge, you should do a show for us and so on,” and I said “well I am not sure you are going to like it” because it was contemporary art and I said “I would like to have a show presenting all the artists that I think that are not good, and explain why”. Because that is important, to explain why. She said,“are you kidding? No it is not possible” and my question was “So you mean that museums are always producing positive shows?” She didn’t know what to answer and she said “well you have to borrow pieces and if the owner sees you are going to put it in a bad one, the price are going to go down, the artists is going to be pissed, and so on. So basically, museums are always optimistic, positive. Well… sorry, that is not the way the world is. And the artists themselves, some of the actually I am exaggerating of course, but at the end they always want to be called artists, because there is always a connection with power in all that, and if you are a good artist it is even better, and if you are a powerful artist, if you can sell your stuff, your trash for two million dollars it’s even better. And that’s what we saw during the explosion of the 80’s at the art world."
