THE COMMON GOOD: The Enterprise of Art
May 16th - June 30th 2008
with
Guy Ben-Ner, Susanne Bosch, Shu Lea Cheang, Claude Closky, Steven Cohen, Finger, Jean-Baptiste Ganne, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Christian Jankowski, Alessandro Ludovico - Paolo Cirio - UBERMORGEN.COM, Sarah Morris, Danica Phelps, Tadej Pogacar, Santiago Sierra ed altri
"The Enterprise of Art" is certainly an ambiguous title. In a period when auctions and contemporary art exhibitions announce new record prices nearly every month, the words "enterprise of art" immediately bring to mind the art market. But we are in Naples, where, despite the profuse presence of internationally renowned art galleries, not many people are actually aware of the huge profits generated by the sale of artworks. We are in Naples, where Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol met for the first time. Two key figures of twentieth-century art, who, in their own manner, caused a radical change in the relationship between the production of artworks and the economy.
Much has been said about the friendship between the representatives of the two continents who confronted each other in Naples. Surprisingly, however, there are no in-depth studies on the relationship between the works of the two artists - if not for an essay that Robert Storr published in the Art Critics Magazine in 1990, where he defined the American artist as "a great cynic" and the German artist as "a great idealist".
Indeed, the biggest difference between Beuys and Warhol, who actually seem to have got on very well, is their attitude toward (relationship with) money.
Both artists reflected on the conditions of art production.
Warhol embraced the new production techniques - which Walter Benjamin critically attacked due to the subsequent loss of the aura of the work that this process created - ably transforming them into his greatest strength: serial production. Warhol transformed his studio into a factory and began earning a substantial amount of money.
While Beuys reflected on the conditions on which the free market was based with the objective of radically changing it. The often talked about "Social Sculpture" generally consisted of discussions moderated by the German master, where he invited people to reflect upon the state of society with him, and to discuss the possible improvements for the future (equal rights for women and men, safeguarding the environment, workers' conditions and - last but not least - the economy).
It is worth thinking about the great equation of Joseph Beuys, who signed the bank notes of different countries with his enigmatic comment: "Kunst = Kapital" or 'Art equals Capital'. Art means capital in the sense that it bears the potential to transform and improve life. For Beuys art was an expression of creativity that could be applied in every area of our lives; anyone's life, because, as Joseph Beuys sustained, "every human being is an artist".
In a certain way, Warhol's praxis of taking everyday objects and transforming them into cult objects follows the same line of thought, but was interpreted with different means and therefore produced different results. By denying and eliminating the divide between popular culture and the so-called "high-culture", Warhol turnedpeople, that the previous generations would never have considered before, into artists. While Warhol, right from the start, developed and used complex techniques, often void of any traces of the "producer", Beuys always physically intervened on his works, leaving well-distinguishable fingerprints. It is hard to image a greater difference than that between the aseptic industrial aesthetics of the pop artist and the raw, decadent and slightly foul-smelling materials clearly assembled by hand that the German artist favoured. And this is where we notice a situation which is in complete contrast with Warhol's technique: not only do the materials show the signs of the hand that made them, but those who touch the works risk being "marked" or permeated by the very same raw materials.