Warhol vs. Beuys

You mention Occupy Wall Street. We are in a paradigm-shifting period, or so one hopes. Do you feel that, in this society in crisis, the role of the artist is changing?

When I was a kid, and started to be obsessed by art in the 1980s, the art world was in this polarity Warhol/Beuys, Beuys/Warhol. Both expended the notion of art extremely but in very different ways. Beuys was co-founder of the Green Party, and for me, as a teenager, I was really interested in this idea of him being a political activist. Warhol extended the notion of art more within art itself, but Beuys was blurring art and life. Then Beuys died, and Warhol was hugely more influential over the last 20 years than Beuys. But one can observe right now younger artists connecting to Beuys, so that might be a partial answer to your question.

What is interesting right now is that these initiatives remain very often individual and you don't necessarily have movements. When we did the Manifesto Marathon, Tino Seghal was wondering if the movement with a manifesto was a very masculine, very loud thing — very 20th century. The 21st century is more about conversations.

Hans Ulrich Obrist on His New Art Movement, "Posthastism" (Artinfo)


Es interesante que Obrist hable de la "polaridad" Warhol/Beuys. No sólo porque constituye un ejemplo elocuente de hasta qué punto es flexible el concepto arte, sino sobre todo porque permite determinar las coordenadas actuales de las instituciones artísticas.

Efectivamente, desde los años ochenta el museo ha sido, directa o indirectamente, territorio Warhol. Incluso cuando no lo ha pretendido; incluso cuando se ha puesto dadá (naïf, claro); incluso ahora que, bajo múltiples denominaciones y premisas, se disfraza de Beuys. Por decirlo de algún modo, hoy la institución-Arte se define a través de ese inverosímil acto de travestismo.

Beuys marca la pauta, es cierto, pero en la calle, cuando se apagan las luces del museo, ese lugar donde las "conversaciones" a las que alude Obrist no suelen ser tales... Ni lo pretenden.