In the DRC:
Images via The Institute for Human ActivitiesThe Institute for Human Activities’ contention is that the effects of art on social reality at the sites where artistic interventions are staged are dwarfed by those that take place at the sites of art’s public reception—in the cities where these pieces are later shown, discussed, and sold.
Galleries, museums, and biennials in places such as Berlin, Istanbul and New York, have become important centers for the presentation of critical, interventionist art. However, the local politicians and businessmen who finance these venues do not do so because they hope this will radicalize local politics, but rather because they know art will make their cities more competitive in the battle for attention, high net-worth individuals, and capital investment.
At the locus of the actual artistic interventions in, say, Congo, Peru, or the Parisian banlieues, art may very well have an impact, though it often remains confined to the symbolic level. Such interventions rarely produce the material results achieved at the centers of reception.
Hence, more often than not, in the transfer of critical art from a zone of intervention to a zone of reception, a gap seems to arise. This gap is remarkably similar to the division between labor and profit in other globalized industries. Art may expose the need for change in Nigeria or Peru, but in the end it brings opportunity, improved living conditions, and real-estate value to Berlin-Mitte or the Lower East Side.
