Artist.index_Esther Ferrer_Textos

ESTHER FERRER

Texto preparado para el simposium sobre : The artist in the Swarming Stage of Manking.

Really I have no anwser to this question, at least not a general anwser or an abstrat anwser,

I don't now what art must be in the end of the century and the millenium,

I don't know what is the artists' role either

When I make art, I am not conscious of fullfilling a specific role, I do it as a person, not as an artist.

And most of the time I don't identify myself with the artists discourse.

Normally, I associate creativity (creation) with anarchy

I employ the word creativity instead of art consciously, because for me art is something else, in a vay something much more limited. When I talk about creativity, it is in the sense that it comes from rejoicing, from pleasure, and it serves first of all the person who practices it, without paying attention to the consequences and without feeling conditioned by obligations to anyone else. There is no "master except oneself," like in anarchy.

So creativity like anarchy, is thus a completely gratuitous choice, which engages only yourself and which you decided to practice.

I can define creation (as I can also define anarchy) as a practic of liberty, first individual and then social. As a matter of fact, I don't understand the meaning of art, or the artist's role, outside of anarchistic thinking.

In this way creativity, like anarchism, can work in any period, because it is someting out of time, without time, and I would even dare to say because it is something anchored in human nature, and for this reason, individualistic and individualized, unfortunately, there are other things anchored in human nature also.

This individualism is precisely the source of its atractiviness and also of its enormous risk, which in my opinion, makes it all the more attractive.

Creation as anarchy, or anarchy as creation, is quite simply a problem of assuming individual responsability. It is the idea that we conceive of ourselves as thinking beings, capable of making his life decisions without delegating decision-making capacities to someone else, whether it be a god, a king, a state, a party, a master of thought, a leader, or an ingenious artist. Our liberty is only limited by the characteristics of our species in the most physical sense, and by the personal decision to employ liberty intelligently, that is, to consider others as beings who practice liberty too.

In view of the unworkability of all the doctrines that claim to liberate humanity, such as capitalism, marxism or authoritative socialism, creative/anarchy (or anarchistic /creativity), seem to be for me, once again, a possibility. Of course I am conscious that this possibility could become simply another fashion, another fad, a new risk that the artist must assume. As the Basque sculptor Jorge Oteiza used to say to me "Esther de fracaso en fracaso hasta el éxito final ( "From failure to failure richt up to the final victory").

Furthermore, I like the anarchist/creative way of thinking, as where there is not on offitial goal, one imperative goal, a parradisse. There is no paradise, neither an artificial one nor a real one nor a proletarian one, at the end of a road. A road that in most of the cases we know, was an authoritative road. So the anarchistic/crativity, is not a road to paradise, this is because, among other things, there is no a road. Machado a spanish poet, exiled by the forces of General Franco, and who died in exile, has written " caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar" (Walker, there is no road, the road is made by walking).

As I said before, anarchy, as opposed to subordinate conduct, is a creative conduct which is grounded in positive individualism.

In creative conduct, so, there is nothing to be subordinate to. In this conduc the being is UNIQUE, different from any other, and I think it is in this UNIQUENESS of the being that creativity can exist, can appear. I like to imagine the artist's work as the expression of this UNIQUENESS.

Acording to Max Stirner, we can say that this UNIQUENESS which separates myself from others, is precisely the condition which allows the possible union with other beings.

Even if it is difficult for me to speak about the artist's role in our societe - because I think that is first of all a personal work that evryone must fine for her or hisself - I suppose the fact of being the witness of this UNIQUENESS (in face of the general massification) may be something interesting and even useful, first for the artists themselves and then, maybe for the others. This awareness can justify the artist's inutility.

To come back maybe to the theme of this symposieum, and to depart for my own experience, I think that the fact of producing artistic objets, consumable and saleable according to the taste of consumer ( I don't say that in a pejorative way) is not what I want and not what I must do. More and more I think of the possibility of produicing only situations. Happilly performance allows me to aproch a littel this objective, especially because performance may be done in any place. It doesn't have a true residence. It is homeless. Or better it did not have a true residence, because more and more performance is done in institutions, in fixed ordered situations. For me that means a kind of stirilisation.

I think that art must be a lot on the street, outside, But I don't say that in the sense of taking art to the people and so on, but because maybe the street is the place where art disturbes the most, questions the most. Maybe the artist must be the big disturber, the oprofesional enmerdeur. the one who make disorder. I know that is not easy. We must have a lot a corage...

Maybe, the artist would be the agent of change of utopian mentality, if it is true, as someone said, that utopian thinking is necessary to the evolution of our society.

I speak about utopia, because someone speaks about it in the letter I received inviting me to this symponsieum. It seems that, according to Marcusse or Buckmister Fuller, we are at the end of utopias.

I agree with that, but not for the economical reasons or for techical progress, but, I think, because the utopias we know from old times untill now were, in general, authoritative ones, closed to themselves, where the individual didn't exist as a UNIQUE entity, but as a utopian, I mean, someone living in an already established utopian society.

I think the moment has arrived for total disbelief int hese kinds of utopias (the daddy state in aur democratic societe is the only one which still survives).

In general any utopia, is a closed universe, a selective universe, a hiearchical universe, a moralistic universe, and we could speak about many other negative aspects of utopian thinking, for instan its sexism. In the majority of utopias, the deciders are men, women are relegated to a procreating role. In utopias there is no room for woman, only for mothers.

Utopia looks for security, efficienct and order but, as Wallace Stevens has written "A violent order is disorder, and a great disorder is an order. These two things are one".

May be the artist have a role to play la dedans. The way to play this role, for me, is personal and I think that all artists must find their own way. The impossible way , that may be is the only realist way . Didn't they say in MAY 68

"Soyons realistes, demandons l'impossible?

Well having said all that, I think that in reallity we are not free at all, that we can choose nothing, that we are condemned to row in a work boat without knowing where it originated or where it is going. Maybe my speach of today was also programed, and I coudn't do or say anything except what I am doing or saying. But happily or unhappily, I don't know anything about that, so I can imagine wonderful theories, about art, about artists, about their place in the post-modern societe, about liberty and so on, while I am spending all my lifetime, however long that will be, rowing in this work boat, thinking that I have a role and that something may changed.

Finally, maybe, we must just continue to pretend that we believe...