the library of impending decline

7
This article was downloaded by: [Universitaetsbibliothek Giessen] On: 15 November 2014, At: 03:31 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rprs20 The Library of Impending Decline Eliza Newman-Saul Published online: 11 Mar 2010. To cite this article: Eliza Newman-Saul (2006) The Library of Impending Decline, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, 11:1, 27-32, DOI: 10.1080/13528160600807562 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13528160600807562 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub- licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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Page 1: The Library of Impending Decline

This article was downloaded by: [Universitaetsbibliothek Giessen]On: 15 November 2014, At: 03:31Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing ArtsPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rprs20

The Library of Impending DeclineEliza Newman-SaulPublished online: 11 Mar 2010.

To cite this article: Eliza Newman-Saul (2006) The Library of Impending Decline, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, 11:1, 27-32, DOI:10.1080/13528160600807562

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13528160600807562

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However,Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for anypurpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsedby Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylorand Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoevercaused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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The Library of Impending Declinee l i z a n e w m a n - s a u l

1 i n t r o d u c t i o n

Since the dawn of the twentieth century, if notearlier, many artists of both sides of the Atlantichave repeated the same mantra. The artist’s maintask, they have insisted, is to break down thebarriers between art and life.

Jackson Lears

Art is about keeping people from dying; we arejust doing a bad job of it.

Madeline Gins

Each artist reaches this moment, a frustratedsigh emitted, and she notes, ‘Why am I makingart? What is the reason for these things?’ It is inthat perpetual state of artistic angst that thispaper begins, not because I have an answer tothese questions, but because I have asuggestion. This suggestion stands as a counter-argument to the sneaking suspicion that themore you know about art history, the more youare aware of art’s failure to change things.Artists always seem to be victims – victims ofthe market, of the political climate, of thegovernment, of the changing corporatization ofeverything. Basically, artists have been abastion for the left, and that left is failing, too.

My proposition is a means to empower thisfailing, to embrace it perhaps. We, as artists,can prepare for the impending decline. I amleaving this ‘impending decline’ open; it couldbe an American political decline, an environ-mental–entropic collapse, a personal sadness ora paranoid attempt to control fear. Butultimately, the impending decline offers anopportunity for the victims to speak (The

Second Sex minus the sex). So, take this idea(impending decline) as the coughing person inthe back of the room. It is a proposal thatconstantly disturbs my project, eliciting doubtand forcing a struggle between axiomaticthinking and my own pleasure in quiet appre-hensive modesty.

2 l e c t u r e

‘I want to welcome all those here today to ourLibrary of Impending Decline (LID), for this isreally not my project but a collaborative missionbetween those who helped create it and thosewho use it. Think of it as your library, a place tohelp bridge idea and action, or belief withphysical space. In the spirit of service, I am hereto talk about what this library can do for you.

We live in an age that declares librariesobsolete (as well as art, for that matter). We livein a country where the government deridesvarious public services as unnecessary. The New

York Times reported on 4 April 2005 that therewas a plan to close all libraries in Salinas,California, leaving it the largest city without alibrary. It is tragically ironic that the narrativehome of John Steinbeck would be the first tolose its free access to knowledge. But the deathof the library should be kept in perspective, oneamong many deaths of public services, and notcause for surprise. This particular library-closing does, however, point to the need for andrelevance of spaces like libraries. As artists, weare given the gift of space, and I believe it is ourobligation to use this space in a relevant

Pe rf o rman c e Re s e a r c h 1 1 ( 1 ) , p p . 2 7 – 3 2 © Tay l o r & F ra n c i s L td 2 0 06DO I : 1 0 . 1 0 8 0/ 1 3 5 2 8 1 6 0 6 0 0807562

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manner. This might mean creating a library,even if its materialization is seemingly out ofcontext. We can no longer depend on thegovernment to offer such facilities.

But I want to assure you that this talk is not atalk about libraries and their decline; rather it isa conversation about a library of decline; alibrary that has been situated comfortably oruncomfortably in the gallery. Therefore, I wantto talk specifically about this space, the one inwhich we are standing. To begin that conver-sation, it is important to think about the title ofthis exhibit because it is with that particularphrase that the project began. In order tounpack the title ‘Library of Impending Decline’,this talk will be divided into three parts. Thefirst section seeks to answer the question: ‘Whya library?’ Then I consider the library’s positionin the burgeoning field of ‘impending decline’.Finally, the discussion branches out from this

space or room to a greater project of ‘art aspedagogy’, arguing that art is the conversationsurrounding an object and barely dependent onmaterial concerns. Please hold your questionsuntil the end. We will work on them if timepermits.’

a . w h y a l i b r a r y

Gallery space is an unstable space. Within thelast fifty years art galleries have shiftedradically in both location and style within NewYork City. The uptown gallery was originally aboutique, modeled after the bourgeois livingroom1 – red rugs, plush chairs and a precisesense of elegance and class that appealed to thepresumed art customer. The gallery wasdesigned to help shoppers imagine the work intheir own home. From that original, visuallydomestic space the gallery followed artists downto Soho to the more ‘neutral’ or

1 I am recalling in thishistorical description atalk led by Vito Acconciat NYU in 2001.

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Library

of

Impending

Decline warehouse/studio loft. The cement floors and

blank white walls allowed those optimisticenough to believe that they were entering theartists’ spaces, freed from the ‘sales room’. Thissort of gallery also dramatically heightened theindustrial beauty of a Richard Serra piece or awork by Eva Hesse. But to pretend that such aspace is neutral is now considered absurd.Installation art and conceptual art have taughtus to question every trace of the blank whitewalls and well-dressed woman behind the deskin the gallery.

As I stood in the empty gallery space, I knewthat I needed to address it. I wanted others toview my work as more than a dramatic visualexperience. I needed to make people stay in myspace and think. As someone who works withwritten ideas, I am often accused of aestheticiz-ing words. I am not a designer, and whether myquestion mark is handwritten or typed is oflittle interest to me, though I’ve learned torecognize the importance of the autographicand allographic divide. I needed to invent aspace that comfortably juggles text, ideas andimages. The library made sense on severallevels. First, people expect and accept spendingtime with books in a library. Also this gallery isplaced in a school, so a library makes sense as apart of the space surrounding the gallery.2

Finally, the creation of the library refers to anacademic and intellectual tradition in art, forinstance the libraries created by ‘Art andLanguage’, Thomas Hirshhorn, Martha Roslerand others. This library, our library, means tocomment on the gallery as a historical entity byconsciously specifying and justifying itspurpose and aesthetic. The art gallery is aprivate store, but it is frequented by a publicwho cannot afford its merchandise. The artexhibit is often a courtesy for the artist – a wayto have her work reviewed and seen3 – ratherthan a venue for selling product. Therefore, eventhough the gallery seeks to sell, it is dependenton what private libraries called a subscriptionbase, or a public declaration of value. It is in thisweird conglomerate stance – a public support for

what it cannot afford – that my library seeks toaddress. I seek to reference both the democraticand elitist traditions of space. Unlike a publicspace, i.e. museum or your local branch of thepublic library, our gallery is in many ways morelike the idea of the classic reading room.

Book clubs were founded as a way to accessbooks that were originally extremely expensiveand rare. Clubs were places where ‘scholarlygentlemen’ could verify the quality of theirbooks or religious figures could study theirrapture. The public library, on the other hand,was born from the idea that in a democraticsociety one must be educated. The public librarybegan as ‘subscription library’ for the middleclass, but later became a way of ‘socializingimmigrants’ into our democratic traditions(Lerner, p. 139).

Our Library alludes to the aristocratic stylewith wide wood molding, oriental carpet,elegant chairs, ornate lamps and an antiquedesk. The computer is a Macintosh, distinguish-ing it from a library computer and pointing tothe art world. On the other hand, the librarytable is an authentic piece from a library,surrounded by cheap modern chairs. The screenis an academic staple and the cheap industrialcarpet is clearly ‘public institution grade’. Thespace seeks to live between a public library anda private library.4 It exists as a space that, likethe gallery, is undeniably ambiguous.

b . i m p e n d i n g d e c l i n e

. . . damnably positive, it is a sign of freedom, asign of the force of the historical processes thatbreak open the infernal cage that is the nationstate.

Antonio Negri

The language of theory and philosophy is alanguage of specificity. Like poetry, it requirescertain exactitude, a delicacy of language thatmust remain seductive or bitterly unseductive.Ambiguous language speaks to what is unequiv-ocally that – unknowable. The vocabulary of thelibrary is the rhetoric of theory, political actionand intellectualism, but it is not the language of

2 When visitors camethey always dropped theircoats off first in mylibrary and then lookedaround.

3 Joe Amrhein of Perogiexplained this idea to me.He mentioned this was aparticular problem withart fairs because artistsno longer get reviewed.

4 I think that manysocially minded peopleare nervous about ornatefurniture, fearing itpoints to a pre-modernisttime, which is a neo-conservative fascination.While I understand thisconcern, I think thatthere is some value in theway that the LID uses apre-modernist aesthetic.No one feared thingswould fall apart, but theworn aspect of thefurniture seemed to beone of its more invitingqualities. The objects inthe room were clearly notfor sale. I think theaesthetic helped separatethe work from projectslike Art and Language’smore utopianinstallation.

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Newman-Saul

rigorous dogmatism. Rather it stands in thegenerative or hallucinogenic state of possibility.

Mallarmé begins several of his poems with‘rien’ or ‘jamais’, dropping the reader into thevoid, only to have the reader crawl back out. Theimpending decline seeks to thrust the viewersimilarly into an unknown location – space thatis speculative and irrational – making itcontrary to the rational and traditionallanguage of interpretation. In the phrase‘impending decline’, I pay homage to Mallarméwho elegantly elicits the philosophical throughthe poetic. The library’s title begins a poem andinvites the viewer to discover variations of whatimpending decline means through thecombination of books.5 Once you have absorbedimpending decline as the premise, all material inthe library is read under that category, offeringviewers a shared interpretive experience.6

I began this section with a quote from AntonioNegri because there remains for me somethingpowerful in that first combination of words,‘damnably positive’. This phrase is my model forimpending decline, two words when suturedtogether can induce a certain level of hope andsadness. Impending decline is my best attemptat optimism, believing that a natural collapse isa constructive possibility. For example, for yearspeople sought to control floods by dams anddredging and blockades, but scientists havefound that if you allow the flood to happen, it ismore beneficial in the long run. Disaster breedslife.7 Please consider that in the decline ofAmerican power is a possibility, too. Rememberback to just after 9/11 when Max Protech held ashow of possible rebuilds for the World TradeCenter? People were excited to think about whathad been wrong with the structures and to try tolearn from the mistakes of the WTC and the wayit affected the tip of Manhattan.

But learning or improvements seem to happentoo rarely in our culture. The library attests to therepetitive nature of fear and loss, or action andapathy. The LID is a space in which one has anopportunity to be afraid with no attempt to easeyour fear. In a time of marketed tragedy, we need a

place to own our fears. This catalog of books seeksto remind the visitor of the banality of fear. AlainBadiou writes that one of the major mistakes ofphilosophers following the ‘linguistic turn’ is anexcessive reverence for the infinite. He describesthe banality of the infinite, especially when onelooks to a system like mathematics that hasmultiple infinites. The banality of collapse is thatwhich stands in constant promise of happening.As I remind myself in more neurotic moments, weonly get to die in one way.

But my multiplicity or banality of infinites isbased on the repetitive presence of historicalinformation countering fear as a unique orindividual experience. Knowledge seeks tocontextualize isolation. The library offers realbooks to be examined. It offers conversation.This library asks its viewers to read andpossibly jot down a few titles. To help with thisprocess, I want to guide you through thecollection. What is on these shelves? As thelibrarian, in the privileged position of spendingtime with the books every day, I see two distinctwriting styles or methods of interpretingcollapse. The first is the macro vision. Thesebooks stand at the modernist utopian/dystopianthreshold, trying to understand large systems ofthe world. Immanuel Wallerstein writes:

The first half of the twenty-first century will, Ibelieve, be far more difficult, more unsettling,and yet more open than anything we have knownin the twentieth century. I say this on threepremises . . . The first is that historical systems,like all systems, have finite lives. They havebeginnings, a long development and, finally, asthey move far from equilibrium and reach pointsof bifurcation, a demise. The second premise isthat two things are true at these points ofbifurcation: small inputs have large outputs . . .and the outcome of such bifurcations isinherently indeterminate. The third premise isthat the modern world-system, as a historicalsystem, has entered into a terminal crisis and isunlikely to exist in fifty years.

(2003: 1)

Also in this category is writer/sociologistPitrim Sorokin who seeks to understand the

5 I am using the idea of‘starting a poem’ becausethere is a tradition ofchance poems that mighteasily relate to this brandof discovery.

6 I have been thinkingabout what is the leastamount one would needto create an installation.Smells seem like oneoption, just architecturalmolding another, but Ihave also beenconsidering howinterpretation is animportant part ofinstallation. Perhaps theword installation with anarrow would be enough;everything you saw wouldbe read that way.

7 This insight, in thecontext of the library,came from a meetingwith Jonathan Gabel.

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Library

of

Impending

Decline patterns of societies. A graph of his concerning

art’s relationship to religion might easily span800 years. These books represent a vision thatis without location, seeking instead to make usunderstand our own irrelevance in the ebb andflow of nationhood. Pleasure arises in theseworks from the mass of empirical data used toconfirm fear.

On the opposite end of the disaster spectrumare authors who deal in the parasitic or micro.These astute writers realize the impact ofknowing exactly, the precise terror, of whatexists or has occurred. Richard Posner writes inhis book entitled Catastrophe, ‘[t]he 1918–1919flu pandemic is a reminder that nature may yetdo us in. The disease agent was an unexpectedlylethal variant of the commonplace flu’. In thiscategory, one might also include narrativeworks such as Grapes of Wrath, in which thereader’s deep identification with the charactersleads to an understanding, or at least a consider-ation, of the disaster-related issue.

While the macro–micro distinction refers tothe style of writing about fear, content can alsobe used to distinguish between and amongbooks. For instance, one might catalog booksinto categories such as doom, loss and collapse.While these categories are perhaps noteworthy,the library avoids excessive classification of itsselections. The books are a carefully chosensampling of the wide variety of works that fitunder the collection’s heading. They range fromhistorical works on the death of McKinley, toMilton and the loss of paradise, to The Gravity

of Thought by Jean-Luc Nancy. The books aregenerally arranged chronologically and in‘sentences’ – combinations that mean to unearththe relevance of the text.8 Unlike the traditionalLibrary of Congress system, this libraryencourages stumbling from one work to the nextwithout a clear thesis.

c . a r t a s p e d a g o g y

The decision to be an artist is the decision to befree. Freedom is the condition of responsibility.

I realized that to be an artist is not a question ofform or content, it’s a question of responsibility.

Thomas Hirshhorn

While the LID exists as a single project, itshould be viewed in the context of my ownhistory of academic parody.

[T]he art market seemed to precipitate an ideal-ization of academia. It should rather haveinspired a critique of academic institutions andintellectual markets. As discrete institutions, theuniversity and the museum are actuallystructured in very similar ways.

(Fraser 2003: 93)

I have always been interested in a certainbrand of intellectualism; this intellectualism isof the greatest value when it elicits pleasure andindependence and ignores the more practical,professional agenda. I have always been dis-appointed that the supposed keeper of romanticintellectualism is the academy, now seeminglycontrolled by vocational and financial concerns.We need other places to preserve our scholarlyhistory. Artists, until the recent creation of theMFA, created clubs like the Arts Student Leagueor Camera Club of New York to maintain aspecialized conversation. Even though thisconversation was primarily technical, thesegroups offered an alternative means as well as aprecedent for pedagogical activity outside of theuniversity. My work imagines an Arts StudentLeague formed in the 1980s when theory and artmost fruitfully overlapped. We still need a spacethat teaches us to question, a place that recordsthe intersection of image and text.

I am seduced by the language of theory; itgives authority to many of my absurd proposi-tions. Like Andrea Fraser, I seek to use thelanguage of rigorous intellectualism to positionmyself as knowledgeable, only to undo thatauthority through the broad and unsupportablenature of my claims. Fraser writes about herown relationship with theory:

I think my reputation as a ‘theory head’ has lessto do with scholarship than being an obsessiveresearcher and compulsive rhetorical mimic.

8 An example might bethe placement of a bookof history of the Crusadesnext to the children’sElite Terrorism Forcereader.

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Newman-Saul

That mimicry does have roots in a desire toachieve competence . . . being able to ‘pass’ as an‘academic’.

(2003: 92)

As women, I think that both Fraser and Irecognize that the authority of the universityoffers a confidence that it is hard for a singleperson to maintain. It is only with the words ofPlato standing nearby that a speaker cancommand authority.

I also position myself as teacher or lecturerbecause those roles are ways to organize conver-sation. In the controlled formality of theacademic system, there is an etiquette forspeaking and an edict for speech. Those whomight otherwise hold off on conversation areoffered a clear forum to voice their concerns. Itis in these conversations that an artwork is fullyformed. I believe art depends on the dialoguesurrounding an object. This is different than theconceptualists’ declaration that the object isirrelevant and instead represents my belief thatan object is often necessary to facilitate theconversation.

And it is with my advocacy for dialogue thatthis talk concludes. My hope is that in thehistory and possibility of this project are aseries of questions that I am not easily able toanswer. I hope that you are inspired to take upthe mission of the impending decline. Howwould you prepare people for this upcomingevent? How do you translate your fear into aproactive stance? What does action mean at thismoment in history? These frustrating questionscan be addressed best within a community; thebooks and the space are here to facilitate thatwork.

Please feel free to ask questions. And thanksso much for coming.

3 w h a t y o u n e e d i n o r d e r t op r e p a r e f o r t h e i m p e n d i n g d e c l i n e

A bad event happened to me, but it havingoccurred became even more complicated in mythinking about it. Even if the event had happened

only to me, it was only recently made availablefor retrospection; it had to be proved as takingplace in every other event. Take the War, forexample; I no longer know for certain which waris meant. When people say, ‘After the war,’ I nolonger know for certain which war – there arethree wars at least, each one antedating,following, and confirming the other.

Barrett Watten

r e f e r e n c e s

Arakawa and Gins, Madeline H. (1979) The

Mechanism of Meaning: Work in Progress (1963–1971,

1978), New York: Harry N Abrams.

Badiou, Alain (2004) Theoretical Writings, trans. RayBrassier and Alberto Toscano, London: ContinuumInternational Publishing Group.

Baker, Nicholson (2002) Double Fold: Libraries and

the Assault on Paper, New York: Vintage.

Dziewior, Yilmaz (2003) ‘Interview with AndreaFraser’, in Yilmaz Dziewior (ed.) Andrea Fraser,Hamburg: Dumont.

Gins, Madeline H. (1994) Helen Keller or Arakawa,New York: Burning Books.

Harrison, Charles (ed.) (1999) Art and Language in

Practice, Vols 1 and 2, Barcelona: Fundació AntoniTàpies.

Hirschhorn, Thomas (2004) Thomas Hirschhorn,Benjamin Buchloh (ed.), New York: Phaidon.

Mallarmé, Stephane (1982) Selected Poetry and Prose,New York: New Directions Publishing.

Marter Joan M. (ed.) (1999) Off Limits: Rutgers

University and the Avant-Garde, 1957–1963, NewBrunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Negri, Antonio (2004) Time for Revolution, trans.Matteo Mandarini, London: Continuum InternationalPublishing Group.

Posner, Richard (2004) Catastrophe: Risk and

Response, London: Oxford University Press.

Sorokin, Pitrim Aleksandrovich (1985) Social and

Cultural Dynamics: A Study of Change in Major

Systems of Art, Truth, Ethics, Law and Social

Relationships, Piscataway, New Jersey: TransactionPublishers.

Wallerstein, Immanuel Maurice (2003) The Decline of

American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World, NewYork: W. W. Norton and Company.

Watten, Barrett (1998) Bad History, New York: Atelos.

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