Jan Świdziński

conference Art et Transformation Sociale

statement at the conference “Art et Transformation Sociale”, Paris, 10 – 13th May 1977

A
That which is currently an is defined by a set of notions, the rules of which are known to and accepted by the social group accepting the given phenomenon as art. This set of notions, values and rules governing them is part of the ideology of the social group.
The ideology of the social group is that ideal picture of the world (model), which it would wish to exist.
The structure of such a model is founded on the experience acquired by the group, and also on the wish to modify it in such a way which would allow to bring about such a state of affairs which the group could accept as beneficial to it.
My position as an artist is determined by the existing set of rules and values in ant. I am an artist for as long as my work can be interpreted as belonging to art, though at the same time I remain an artist when I change these rules, since a change of rules is a binding value in contemporary art.

B
The contemporary model of reality is a materialistic model. The difference between the two basic systems of the contemporary world – between the older form, capitalism, and the newer, socialism – lies in the divergent, class attitude to the means of production. The capitalist break down into classes differently related to the means of production and its implications in culture define the area of activity by contemporary artists.
The more efficient is the functioning of the capitalist system, the greater is the speed of changes in the material structure of civilization – and vice versa, the greater the speeding up of changes in the material structure of civilization- the more efficient is the functioning of the capitalist system.
Changes occurring in our environment require an effort which is essential to adapt to them. The greater the pace of those changes, the more frequent is the need to adapt to the changing situation – the greater the effort.

C
The more advanced is the system of production, the grater are the opportunities for increasing production. In a capitalist society the gap between the weak and the strong in widening steadily. The strongest attains a hegemony.
The dependence between material practice and ideology results in economic hegemony accompanying cultural hegemony.
Hegemony in art means that personal notions, values and rules of appraising cultures are enforced on others.
Art functions in culture as a certain plus value. This plus value offered by art confirms the plus value of the ideology behind it. The plus value of ideology gives a plus va1ue to the social system and the state of affairs resulting from it.
The moment the contextual character of art (the set of notions, values and rules resulting from the context of social practice) is revealed, art ceases to substantiate the correctness of social practice. On the contrary, social practice substantiates the correctness of art. As an artist I am subjected to the operation of the system of values, notions and rules governing contemporary art.
These rules are enforced upon me by the Art World, which holds a position of hegemony, is the leader. These rules are set by the ideology of the leader. The ideology of the leader is enforced by its social practice. There is a dependence between notions employed in art, its criterions of values and rules and the context of reality.
Therefore the acceptance of an art system behind which lies a different model of the world from that in which I live, implies an acceptance of words without accepting their meaning. This would place me in the position of a stylist, which Is what all provincial artists do. Provincial art never acts in its own interest. Its dependence on the leader only strengthens the position of the latter as one who supplies the only true models to copy.
Art models, because of the contextual dependencies, are at the same time models of reality proposed by the leader. The idea of isolated areas of art is unacceptable. Being in reality impossible to apply it would simultaneously imply an abandoning of contextual influences of art. The only possible situation is that of introducing ones own context to the set of parameters characterizing the context of others.
THE CONTEXT AS THE PARAMETER OF ANOTHER CONTEXT implies:
a) the legal validity of varying outlooks (and not only that of the Art World) on the grounds that they reflect a different social practice. That they are different is because their context are different,
b) the relativity of the set of notions, values and rules (also those proposed by the Art World), and in consequence, the relativity of historically shaped models of reality.

D
The excessive acceleration of contemporary civilization is the effect of the operation of a specific, historically conditioned system. The effect of the excessive acceleration of civilization is the loss of a semantic relation between the system of signs employed by culture and the marked reality. Our notions, which we employ to define reality, do not keep up with the speed of changes occurring in it. We must understand reality to be able to construct it.
To understand it we must start each time from the beginning in defining its meaning, depending on the existing context.
The sense of my work as an artist does not lie in making reality a part of art – as had been proposed in 20th century art from Duchamp, through Happening, Land Art, Body Art, policy as Beuys’s art – but of making art a part of reality. This is served by my premise of the contextual nature of art. Existing states of affairs are relative, depending on the changing context, and they may undergo changes.