http://wikipediaart.org/
I wonder does the invitation to intervene in an art project undermine any potential subversion of the work itself? In this way does the work perform that Hegelian trick of accepting its opposite? Perhaps this is not the appropriate way to conceive of this piece. Perhaps instead the enforcing of the rules of Wikipedia is the projects way of (explicitly) accepting the restrictions of the (art) world to which it belongs. If one is invited to perform an art intervention does this mean that no real art intervention is possible? This seems to me to be a merit of http://wikipediaart.org/. It admits the relationship between the art work and the art world in terms of subversion. The contemporary art world like http://wikipediaart.org/ exists in anticipation of the subversion of itself. And when that anticipation is met the strategy of both is one that disables the potential of intervention being subversive. The strategy of both is to confer the intervention the status of art. In doing so the critique of the subversive is swallowed by being an accepted part of the structure of the art world and in this case the piece.
These are issues that the originators of the project are well aware of.
NS: I worry about this being seen as vandalism by the Wikipedia community, about the powers that be simply removing the entry. This is where the press and citations act as a kind of doubled gesture: they validate the project while also potentially changing it (and that change also validates the project, because that’s the point of the intervention).
SK: “Performative citations.” We invite bloggers, writers and editors to join in the collaboration and construction, the transformation, the destruction and the resurrection of the work itself – by publishing then citing and thus changing Wikipedia Art.
NS: I have a feeling that there will be many Wikipedians who will see Wikipedia Art as neither valid information, nor art.
http://wikipediaart.org/ is a valuable piece insofar as it demonstrates this dilemma.
