Author Description

The fact that there is no place for us outside our ideologically controlled and mediated society is not a reason to refrain from action, commitment and taking up positions. This publication aims to give an impetus to the debate which questions the possible critical functions of art, given the manipulative and ideologically affirmative strategies of the (institutional) structure within which art has to function. The essays address the choices one has to make with respect to ‘place, position, presentation, public’ in order to direct the meaning, function and effect of the work of art in its complex, discursive field of signification. Although ‘placing’, ‘presenting’ and ‘interpreting’ are in the first instance read as referring to the object that is at stake here (work of art, text, installation), it is impossible not to take into account the complicating presence of the producing subject in the post-Freudian sense. With contributions by Dennis Adams, Judith Barry, Cor Blok, Jean Fisher, Andrea Fraser, Charles Harrison, Deborah J. Meijers, Laura Mulvey, Patricia C. Phillips, Adrian Piper, Keith Piper, Nobert Rademacher, Fritz Rahmann, Martha Rosler, Peter Weibel and Michael Zinganel.