Jus te Ack « WA > c t Fron the Chine of sfitetins Nearly 40 years after their first appearance, the practices now associated with “institutional Critique" have for many come to seem, well, institu- pring 2005 alone, Doniel Buren raturned with a major B ovazea 1 F Huseum of art hosted o contrence,orgorata by the Seutnorn carenn Furthar symposia ond panels plonned fr tre Getty and the Coleoe aot 1850, one increasingly finds Institutional Critique aecorded the unquestioning respect often gronted artistic phenomena that have @chieved @ certain historical status. That racognition, however, quickly becomes on occasion to dismi lated with it, as ‘esentmant of its perceived e: sivity and high-handedness rushes to the ists wno nove become art-historical institutions itique the institution of art? Michael Kimmeiman Provided « ready example of such skepticism in his critical New York Timesof the museum" ond the “conmosity status of art” were “counteresta lishment ideos when, tke Mr. Buren, they emerged 40 oF So years ogo, Kimmelman contends, Buren is now an “official artist of France, a role : MUSEE we A VENDRE for the most port, outside traditional institutions, with fiscal indepen dence, in © public sphere beyond the legislative control of art experts. POUR CAUSE DE Institutional Critique arise with laments over how bad things have become! in an art world in which The Museum of Modern Art in New York opens it new temporary-exhibition golleries with @ corporate collection, and hedge-funds sell shares of single paintings. In these discussions, one af Maree Booaners foie (Museum of Mogern Ar® for sole-for Reasons (2¢ Bonkruptey), 1970-1971 artifact of on era before the corporate mego-museum and the 24/7 global ‘art morket, @ time when artists could stil conceivably toke up a critica position against or outside the institution. Today, the argument goes, or failure, swallowed up by the institutions it stood ogainst. But assessments of the institutionalization of institutional Critique Urgent stakes in the present. | recently discovered that none of the half-dozen people often cons sidered the “founders” of institutional Critique claim to use the term, Lag first used it in print ina 1985 essoy on Louise Lawler, “In and Out of Place," when | ran off the now-familiar list of Michael Asher, Morcel ons Hoocke Broodtnaers, Daniel Buren, and Hans Haacke, adding that, “while very |= ows-00t 1970 ditterent, all these artists engage(d) in Institutional Critique.” | probably. eee fiest encountered thot list ot names coupled with the term institution” in fon 20% 19m eachensiations, and our perception of those works and texts os canonical, ‘central moment in the process of institutional Critique’s so-called ptutionalization, And so | find myself enmeshed in tne contradictions Broodthaers’ operations revealing the material conditions of those int rd compicites, onbitions, and ambivalerce that institutional Critique is on 2ccused of, caught betw tutions os ideological" The essay continues with references to Wn the sel-flattering possibility that | was tlonalized language,” “ins: Fhe first person to put the term in print, and the critically shameful pros “impulse to criticize itself trom within, to question its institutionalizatig {oa pithy catchphrase, packaged for co-optation. —f> But the term *Institutiona Critique” never oppeors. If, Indeed, the term institutional Critique emerged as shorthand for By 1985 | had had the opportunity to read Buchlon’s earlier essayg ne critique of institutions,” today that catchphrase has been even fur. fon Broodthaers ond Asher as well as Asher's Writings 1973-1983 Works 1969-1979, edited by Buchloh. | read Buren’s “The Function oft Museum* trom 1970, stitution” and “critique.” The practice of Institutional Critique is gen- ally defined by its apperent object, “the institution," which is, in turn, faken to refer primarily to established, organized sites for the presenta. Musoum didn't take place until 1986.) | read Douglas Crimp’s “On the er* put it, Institutional Critique is ar: that exposes “the structures Museum's Ruins* (written in 1980) when it appeared in The Anti-Aestheticy amend logic of museums and art galleries.* “Critique” oppears even lose ise in 1983. | reas Martha Rosler's “Lookers, Buyers, Dealers, and fj specific than “institution,” vacillating between a ratner timid “exposing, Makers: Thoughts on Auclence" (1979) when it appeared in Art Aftar reflecting," or “revealing,” on the one hand, and visions of the revolu- Modernism in 1984.’ By 1985, | had also read Peter Birger's Theory.of Metionary overthrow of the existing museological order on the other, with the the Avant-Garde, which was published in Germany in 1974 and finallys Menstitutional critic os a guerrilla fighter engaging in acts of ecbversion d sabotage, breaking through walls ond floors and doors, provoking jrnsorship, Bringing down the powers thet be. In either case, “art* and Mortist" generally figura as antagonistic Is that “with the historical avant-garde movements, the social subsys that is ort enters the stage of self-criticism. Oadaism ..na longer criticizes ly opposed to an “institution” at incorporates, co-opts, commodities, and otherwise misapprapriates radical —and uninstitutionalized—proctice: These representations can admittedly be found in the texts of erities tssociated with Institutional Critique. However, the idea thet institutional Eritique opposes art to institution, or supposes that radical artistic Practices con or ever did exist outside of the institution of art before being “institutionalizea” by museums, is contradicted at every turn by ihe writings and work of Asher, Broodtheers, Buren, and Haacke. From Broodthasrs' announcement of his first gallery exhibition in 1964—which begins by confiding that "the idea of inventing something insincere Inlly crossed my ming and then informirg us that his dealer will “take 30 percent"?—the critique of the apparatus that distributes, presents, 4 collects art has been inseparable from a critique of artistic practice Schools that preceded it, but criticizes ort as an institution, and course its development tock in bourgeois society.” a Having studied with uchlon as well as Craig Owens, who edited #Fpocuction of art, stuslo 08 wel a offic, and the sites of the pro Bion of ort clscourse: art magazines, coalogues, ort columns in the Bij prets, aymposio, end lectures. Andi leo inches the ates of roductlon of the producers of art and ort discourse: studio-art, Ehttory ond, now, curctorial-studles proprams. And finaly, as Rosler Tein te te of her somina 1979 essay, it aso Includes all the Mook hie concen of snatittin® canbe seen most clearly inthe work sone who ene to isitationl Critique trough atu fron physical j enironmenial systems in the 1960s to scil systeme, starting with fs golery-visitor polls of 1965-1973, Beyond the most enconpaesing Biziot suvstontive spaces, places, people, ond things, the “intitutlon® gaged by Hoocke can best be defined of the network of socll rd acononic relationships between them. Uke his Condensation Cube, 969-1965, and his MOMA-Po!, 1970, the galery and museum figure less Gcbjects of ertique themselves than os containers in whicn the largely Rerrect ond Inveible forces and relatiors that traverse particular col spoces can be made visible.» Hioving fron o substantive understanding of “the insitution* os, fete places, orgonizotione, and Individuals to a conception of it. o8 @ cial ela, the question of what Is inside ond what is outelde becones cn more complex. Engoging those boundcries hos been @ coneistent cern of ortists associated with institutional Critique. Beginning in 969 witha travail in sit at Wide White Space in Antwerp, Seigm, Buren Prciced mony works that bridge intrior ord exterior, artistic and non Grist sites, revealing how the perception of the sane materiel, the Sine sign, can change racially pending on where I Ie viewed However, it was Asher who may hove realized with the greatest "s onnounces, and especialy when i exhibited os ort jsecr-object, which brings us once agcin to orn With his netalotion Ilnster (Coravor), Asher demonstcoted that the Insituionalization of who demanded the removel ef Buren’s work in 1971). As their writings” ‘make clear, the institutionalization of art in museums or its commocitica in galleries cannot be conceived of as the co-optation or misopprapriat of studio art, whose portable form predestines it to a life of circula fond exchange, market and museoiagical incorporation. Their rigorot site-specific interventions developed as a means not only to reflect ‘these ong other institutional conditions but also to resist the very fo ‘ot appropriation on which they reflect. These transitory works furt reasons of bankruptey the cotologue of the Cologne Art Fair—with a limited edition sold throug Galerie Michael Werner. Finally, the most explicit statement of thé i role of artists in the institution of art may have been made by Haad “artists, ne wrote in 1974, “as much as their supporters and t enemies, ne matter of what ideological coloration, are unwitting partner in @ prospectus that served as. wrapper for ‘They participate jointly in the maintenance and/or development of ideological moke-up of their society. They work within that frame, set frame and are being fromes."* From 1969 on, © conception of the “institution of ort” begins. ‘emerge that includes not Just the museum, nor even only the sites ol becomes an,tion, But in conceptual or perceptvol frames. First presented in the 199s edition of Skulptur Projekte Minster, the work consisted of a rented rex site, Act is art when it exists tor discourses and practices that recogn it as art, value and evaluateit as art, and consume it as art, whether, object, gesture, representation, or only idea. The institution of art isn tory, relational, everyday, or even invisible, whet is onnounced. an Perceived as ort is always already institutionalized, simply because j perception not necessarily aesthetic but fundamental determination, What Asher thus demonstrated is that the institution of art historians, dealers, collectors, or museum visitors. And above allie ‘exists in the interests, aspirations, and criteria of value that orient o eetions and define our sense of worth. These competencies and dispo tions determine our own ins:itutionalization as members of the fil ort. They make up what Pierre Bourdieu called habitus: the “social mat body,” the institution made ming.”* ‘There Is, of course, an “outside” of the institution, but it hos ne fixed, substantive characteristics. It is only what, at any given moments does not exist as an object of artistic discourses and practices. But just 5 ort cannot exist outside the field of art, we connot exist outside de the fold, to the extent that it remoirs outside, con have no effect init. So if there is no outside for us, itis not because the institution jectly closed, or exists as an epparatus in @ “totally administered gety," 0" NOS grown all-encompassing in size and scope. It is because institution is inside of us, and we can’t get outside of ourselves. Has Institutional Critique been institutionalized? institutional fique nos aJways been institutionalized. It could only have emerged ‘ond, like all art, con only function within the institution of art. The. psistence of Institutional Critique on the inescopability of institutional termination may, in fact, be what distinguishes it most precisely from jr legacies of the historical avant-garde, It may be unique among lagacias in ite recognition of the failure af avant-garde movements, ‘tha consequences of that failure: that is, not the destruction of the stitution of art, but its explosion beyond “he traditional boundaries of rt morkot but adapts tot. Such adaptation does not eradicate the idea Individuol creativity, it affirms it, and the reason is the failure of the ent-geralfe].”'6 Ie is ortists—as much as museums or the market—who, in their efforts to escape the institution of or:, have driven its expansion, wnbrace on outside, to radefine art or reinzegrate it into everyday life, reach “everyday” people and work in the *real” world, we expand our {fevoWve around oppositions like inside and outside, public ond private, “tivsm ond populism. But when these arguments are used to assign pollti-fre stock market dus to falling prices ond corporate accounting sean- lock of confidence in the bond market due to the rising national pt low interest rates, ond regressive tox cuts. And the art market is fhe only art-world site where the growirg economic disparities of our wiiety ore reproduced. They can also be sezn in what are now oniy nomi Bay nonprofit” organizations like universities—where MFA programs ‘20105, the exclusivity of which is broadly advertised in fashion magazi ‘ond society pages. Far from becoming lass elitist, ever-more-popuig museums have become vehicles for the mose-marketing of elite tost Hroiayees that now surpass 40 to one. practices thot, while perhors less rarified in terms of the aesthetic come! | Representations of the “art world" es distinct from the “real ov creep aalunct laser and museums, were ent-union poles ve produced compensation ratios between the highest and lowest-poid of art professionals. However, the fact that we are trapped in our feld does not m ‘thot we have no effect on, and ore not affected by, what tokes pla beyond its boundaries. Once ogain, Haccke may have been the first ta. fmewitn content ond justify their existence, And with these representations, je alzo reproduce the mytholagias of volurteerist freedom and creative Feripotence that have made art and artists such attractive emblems for aginory distance betwean the social and economic interests we invest p through our acthities ond the eupnenized ertstic, intellectual, end ten politica! “interests” (or cisinteresta) that provige those activities ‘on object or sign is transfo-med as it traverses physical and conceptual iberaiism's entrepreneurial, “ownership-society" optimism. Thot such pptinism has found perfect artistic expression in neo-Fluxus practices ke relational aesthetics, which ore now in parpetual vogue, demonstrates 1e degree to which wnat Biirger called the cvant-garde's cim to integrate “ort into life praxie" has evolved into « highly ideological form of escapism. But this is not just about ideology. We are not only symbols of the rovads of the current regine: in tis art merket we are ts airect material ‘ently opposed spheres of art, the state, and corporations. It may: Hoscke, above al, who evokes charactarizations of the institutional crit 195 an hersic challenger, fearlessly speaking trutn to power—and Just ‘bly $0, 98 his work has been subject to vandalism, censorship, and pa Every time we speak of the “institution” as other than *us," we {sovow our role in the creation and perpetuation of its conditions. we eld responsibility for, or action against, tre everyday complicities, com- bromises, and censorship—above all, self-consorsip—which are driven Viomentory showdowns. However, anyone familiar with hic werk chould recognize that, far from trying to tear down the museum, Haacke's proj has been an attempt to defend the institution of ert from instrument ization by political and economic interests. port of the “recl world” is one of the most absurd fictions of art dig ‘our own interests in the field and the benefits we derive from it. It's Pot o question of inside or outside, or the number and scale of various ganized sites for the production, presentation, and distribution of art, Ws not o question of being against the inst tution: we are the institution. It's « question of what kind of institution we are, what kind of values we ‘what forms of practice we reward, and what kinds of ple, Is @ direct product of neoliberal economic policies. it belongs, frst o all, to the luxury consumption boom that has gone along with grow Bush’s tox cuts are our patrons—and, secondly, to the same econonie | fe istitutionalizembodied, and performed by individuals, these ore the question Institutionol Critique demancs we osk, above al, of ourselves, Finally, i ia tis sef-questioning—mere than 0 tnemaric te institution," no matter how troaaly conesived-—thot defies Insite Critaue os @ practice. if, 0s Burger put, the self-criticism ot tha torical avant-gorde intended “the abolition af autonomous ere intagrotion “into the praxis oft ane toon Intitation of Ctiaue,” rgevanber 2005. | woul tke to ong " It folted in both its aims and 5.17 However, the very institutionalization that marked this toikg became the condition of Institutional Critique os an art prostig peigent eating. dismantling or escaping the institution of ort and cimed instead to dete ‘the very institution for which the institutionalization of the avant-garde “self-criticism had created che potential: an institution of eritique, an it may be this very instituticnalization that aliows Institutional Criig to judge the institution of art against the critical cloims of its legitinia Giscourses, against its self--epresentotion as a site of resistance a contestation, and against its mythologies of radicality and symbolic rev lution. fbr 1982. Bronson and Pagay Gale (et), Museums Bion Nolis (oa), Are Attar Modernism Conorige, Hossochusetts 1984 ross, Minneapolis 1984, p22, of ort as 2 saca ld aevaaped by Pare CContrieg, Mossocnuse:ts 1992, 127. 6