Syndicate: Radek visits ... "Art Cologne", NGCC`s action

[Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@v2.nl>]

Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 18:01:32 +0200
From: Bastian Ruppik <ruppik@netcologne.de>

NGCCÂ¥s action at "Art Cologne"
	Art Fair in Cologne seems to be one of the largest world¥s enterprises
which creates a separate zone of art and makes a sphere of privileged
pleasures for the corrupted narrow-professional boheme of contemporary
art. The art which was the most advanced and revolutionary regiment of
the intellect all through the XX century became one of the specialized
fields of capitalistic production. A new action of the NGCC took place
on November, 10, at one of the central sites of the fair, an open
discussion "Art as an avantgarde of economy" in KOMED-Saal, Mediapark
Koeln, where the ideologists of market art took part. The action was
called "Soap bubbles as an avantgarde of economy" and was organized by
Koeln-based artist Igor Sacharow-Ross and art-historian Sylvia Sasse.
	Before the beginning of an open discussion the NGCCÂ¥s members, Sylvia
Sasse and an artist Sylvana Toneva gave the following press-releases to
the public:
	"Non-Governmental Control Comission. Action "Soap bubbles as an
avantgarde of economy". NGCC and "Radek" magazine make an action "Soap
bubbles as an avantgarde of economy". It is our replics to today¥s
discussion, to which we weren¥t invited but we decided to participate
anyway. A few explanatory replics more: capital is an instrument of
power, which is exercised, for example, by Western Europe over Eastern
Europe; art is a variety of symbolic capital, the possession of which
proves to be the dominating tool of the power¥s agents (that¥s why the
mythology of the "art autonomy" circulated by the closed enterprises
like, for example, Art Cologne, seems even more cynical);
Non-Governmental Control Comission is a political-artistic project which
was established in spring 1998 by the intellectual circle grouped around
the Moscow-based "Radek" magazine which makes the political actions and
campaigns working on creating the new sociopolitical technologies".
	The first of the speakers was Boris Groys, a bright example of the "new
right" mentality, one of the creators of art market dealers`
professional ideology (there was a parody text on Groys distributed with
the press-release where "Groys" has been telling about his successful
career in an extremely infantile language).Soon after the beginning of
his speech ten NGCC's members present in the hall started to make the
soap bubbles and kept this job during all the speech, invoking an
evident panic of the speaker and a variable reaction of the audience
(from the solidary laughing and support to the feared agression - for
example, the Swiss art-collectioner Claudia Jolles was trying to tear
the soap-bubbles-maker out of one participants` hands). Groys tried to
finish the muddled reading of his text with the unsuccessful
improvization that "the bubbles are the art too". Not waiting till the
very end of his speech, the NGCC`s members got up and left the hall, and
Sylvana gave the press-releases as an ultimatum to the presiding
comittee (there was the Swiss curator Jean-Cristoph Amman between them
who is known for his discriminatory statements about lack of the
perspectives of the art outside Western Europe).
	Drawing the conclusions of the action, the NGCC`s members state that
the tasks were realized, the action was a succesful media-provocation
(the leading European art editions and the German TV on the action were
present at the action) and a destructive invasion into the world of the
corrupted art-establishment was effected. Surely, we don`t evaluate the
self-satisfied snobs as the main complotters and makers of the
capitalist exclusion/corruption policy - it's the other way round,
they're the unconscious participators and even its victims. But every
new "definition of this power's sources, the duty to draw the public's
attention to them and to blame them for their deeds, seems to be
important, because to speak about the subject, to make the
institutionalized information networks listen to you, to call the names,
to raise the showing finger is a first step towards demonstrating the
subversion of power and the mobilisation of new forces to  struggle
against the existing forms of power" (M.Foucault).