Ivanka Apostolova
Installation - an Interview with Suzana Milevska

I.A.: At the last year's Congress of the world art critics, members of the AICA, held in London, you presented, as you say, a brave report under the title: 'Self-referential Versus Critical'. What provoked you to such an attitude and what have you proven or accomplished with it in front of your colleagues?

S.M.: The purpose of the text, which I presented at the session 'Cultural power of the curator' was not to prove a completely new thesis or to make absolute changes in the professions of the curator and the critic. I would rather say that I wanted to re-examine the relation between these two, in my opinion, totally different professions. That is, during the last two decades we are continually facing the disappearance of differences and distinctions between the fine-arts media, a process that is occurring in the relation between the criticism as well the art. Curatorship, as a hybrid profession which establishes a more direct relationship between the critic or theoretician and the artist, underlined this interactive intertwining of different professions and media. I see this tendency as a positive one, and from the beginning of my professional engagement in this field I supported a more creative, more artistic form of criticism which has brought me to the curatorial profession as the most creative relation between the artist and the art work. Even my first project Signature, Event, Context, was in a way a manifest of my future understanding of the need for a more creative function of criticism. From here originates my text on re-examination of another extremity and danger which, I believe, comes from such an approach: the danger of losing any critical attitude toward the art work and reality in general. The problem of self-reference is present everywhere from the simple reason that language itself is self-referential. According to Wittgenstein self-reference is the only mechanism by which something can be created in the language, but criticism and curatorial practice are caught in the language as well as a large part of conceptual art. That is why the main question that emerges from my text is: how can the curator be self-referential and critical at the same time, and in what way do words have or can have a connection with reality. Recently I have curated the project Words, Objects, Acts which deals exactly with the very important relation between our words, our world and the problem of performativity in the language: I see these issues as a continual and consequent quest within my theoretical investigations of the nature of the language and its reflection on the reality.
The danger that I sensed in the theoretical explanation: proliferation of power (which as pointed out by John Searl, comes from the need to control reality by creating or believing that one is creating reality when the method of self-reference prevails) was present in practice, on the AICA Congress itself in the presentations of my colleagues who spoke mainly of their own projects with no global reflection. At this point I would like to emphasize the fact that I consider self-presentation as the most obvious abuse of self-reference that you can find among critics and curators. That was one of the highest reasons for my provocative presentation at the AICA Congress. Still, I am afraid that I could not avoid the self-presentation virus during this interview. Sometimes the context dictates it and it is up to the ethical sensitiveness of the authors as regards the dealing with such dangers.

I.A.: Could you tell us a bit more about the project Signature, Event, Context; in connection with it you mentioned also a creative function of criticism. With what methods is a creative critique achieved?

Signature, Event, Context (detail), 1992, Foto: R. Jankuloski

S.M.: The project Signature Event, Context was my first project (1992). That was an attempt to actually realise what I had already written about and the method I represented at that time - the deconstruction. In fact, the idea was to show how the critique could be in a more direct relationship with the work it refers to.
Maybe it would be best if I stick in greater detail to one of the 'critiques installations' (as I would call those works now) so as to make it more clear how the exhibition place looked like. Namely, instead of exhibiting works of artists, I exhibited my own critiques on artists. One of the pieces consisted of a photo collage (all photos were from Robert Jankulovski) made of several of my published and unpublished texts written for the group ZERO - a Macedonian group from the eighties which was the first and perhaps the only alternative postmodernist movement in the age when modernism was still highly dominant in Macedonia - as well as texts on one of its members, the sculptor Bedi Ibrahim. Next to the collage there was a fragment from his mirror installation which helped reading the text that was typed backwards. The idea was that the piece of work and the critique are intermingled, that they complement each other, and are mutually dependent on each other. Another example that could clarify the concept and aim of this project would be the installation with the kaleidoscope - the visitors could watch one of the photo-collages through it thus viewing a fragmented and multiplied image of the work - such images that I proposed the critiques should offer.
At that time I thought that such an approach was important and necessary as a counterpoint to the established abstract expressionism and the critique that was written for such works, a critique that imitated the manner of painting. Soon I realised that I am more interested in being directly involved in the process of my projects, so I had to choose between the critique and the curatorship. Inevitably, I have chosen the later mostly because it allows a wider range of practices and it can still include a theoretical approach when it comes to writing introductory texts in catalogues.

I.A.: You said that in cases of a more creative, artistic critique, there is a risk of loosing the critical attitude towards art. How does the critic achieve being self-referential and critical at the same time?

S.M.: Besides the risk that exists when the curator writes critiques for her/his own projects, which is more of a social problem and a problem of conflict of interests, there is also another risk. That risk is in connection to the texts that are only descriptive and imitate the structure of the piece of work. That is the type of school writing in the sense of 'draw a line from the left bottom corner diagonally to the right top corner'. In that way the text remains closed in the same circle as the work and says nothing more about the work and the context it had been created in. For example, one can not write about the fine-art structure of an engaged piece of work. The self-referential in that case would mean complete avoiding of the exterior circumstances that had led to the creation of the work, thus the critique would not be critical at all. Within the framework of several projects such as Writing and Difference (1993), Self and Other (1994) or Liqour Amnii I (1996) I evolved a kind of 'three dimensional curatorship' represented by objects or installations that I would make by the end of the preparation of the exhibitions. This would be an interactive comment on the curatorial process and the intertwining of my and artists' ideas. That was my contribution to the reconstruction within the context of curatorship, an obviously impossible intervention when art criticism is in question.

I.A.: In the same text 'Self-referential Versus Critical' you write that the critique today should change its methods to get in terms with art that has changed significantly. What are those methods or what should they be?

S.M.: If the artists use an indefinite number of different media, I think that the critics should use more methods, a sort of interdisciplinary approach that would allow different angles of understanding the piece of work. So, if the artist had used references of Byzantine frescos I think that it would be a great problem if the critic stuck to some structuralist methods. This leads to a huge misunderstanding (unless one uses a literature that speaks of that issue) and we get a text that is not adequate to the works; similarly as in the case of the engaged works. It is always better to combine several different methods from different cultural and historic contexts, so that the work can be seen from different angles.

I.A.: The critic, as is the case with the artist, goes through different phases of perception and relationship in his work; could you tell us a bit more about your methods in the past and now.

S.M.: In the course of my 10 years of intensive engagement in criticism and curatorial practice I am constantly trying to change and build my methods of working. This does not mean that there is a lack of consistency as a negative definition; on the contrary, for me consistency inevitably leads to dogmatism. My attitude towards art and the artists I work with has changed, and this is evident in the texts I write and the method of co-operation. My first critical writings were full of theoretical references and application of the current methods which gradually disappeared as a schematic structure. But in my later writings I leave more space for the ideas of the artists I write about. These texts are more thorough descriptions of the works and I minimise the interpretations which I insist should come from the conceptual and social milieu of the artist, as well as from his/her personal character. I have not neglected theory, I only complemented the starting methods of deconstruction and psychoanalysis with phenomenology, philosophy of the mind, pragmatism and post-feminism, the methods of which I intertwine and use more thoroughly when writing theoretical texts. Of course, the use of these methods could be discerned also in writing for exhibition catalogues, although in that case I try to be more direct and stick to the appropriate context. When it comes to curatorial projects, in view of realisation of art works, choice of place, presentation and promotion, the theory and the practice of collaboration with the artists are intermingled and they interactively build up a complex material of the exhibition project.

I.A.: Why do you give priority to description rather than interpretation; where is the creative function of the critique here?

S.M.: When I speak of description, I do not have in mind describing only the piece of work, but as I have already stated, description of the wider circumstances in which it had been outlined and created.

I.A.: If one leaves more space for the idea of the artist, does that present a threat of loosing the criticality of the critique?

S.M.: On the contrary, I think that only then the real critique can begin, after a wholesome presentation of the initial concept, so that it can be compared to the final result and thus be assessed weather it is a successful piece of work or not. I think that texts which have a theoretical nature can refer only to some theoretical and philosophical concepts that are very different from the initial point of the artist, because otherwise the concept of the piece of work would be burdened by meanings that are only in the heads of ambitious critics who want to impose their knowledge and their arbitrariness, as if the artist did not know what he/she wanted to say and that he/she was not intelligent enough. Such underestimation of the artists and the art works are often present with critics who use art as an excuse for their own equilibrating interpretations which show how little they appreciate the artists they write about. It is a completely different thing when the piece is criticised for not achieving the goal that was set in the initial concept.

I.A.: In your opinion which method most convincingly allows the understanding of the truth of the art work and the artist?

S.M.: Because I do not believe that there is a single truth of the art work, I represent a critique that allows as many interpretations as possible.

I.A.: The attitude as well as the principle is changeable. Do you have the ability for a chameleon strategy?

S.M.: This question of changeable attitudes is connected to the question regarding the need for consistency. The curator's work means collaboration with many different artists of different generations, conceptual schools and different social and cultural contexts. It would be a problem if a curator stuck to certain established norms and rules without taking into consideration the contextual belonging of the artist and the piece of art. That is why, in describing methods close to me I prefer the scheme of the MPD syndrome. I'd like to explain this: the MPD - multiplex personality disorder syndrome is a medical term used to describe people who suffer the syndrome of a multiple personality, but at the same time is used by the philosophy of the mind and the problems of the mind and body. This term was introduced by Danniel Dennett who uses it to explain a non-medical phenomenon - a very frequent occurrence which he believes we all suffer from - a phenomenon of representing and simulating more persons in different contexts. Thus, in order to fulfil his professional duty correctly, the curator is often forced to adapt to the character of the artist and 'to step into the artists shoes', to try and think like him/her and to make decisions from the aspect of the other person, and not according to some formerly established rules. If there is an absolute need to establish a global strategy, I would choose a flexible strategy in which the context sets the rules of the game. As context we would consider all elements of space, artistic concept, the real social, cultural, economic and political conditions in which the work is created and presented, the personal interest of the curator in a certain moment, as well as the personal evaluation of the relevancy of the art work.

I.A.: The overall reality of its existence has shown that only art can change art, and it is redundant to insist on synthetic criteria of value criticism; especially in this time when all values are re-examined.

S.M.: I do not think that value criticism is redundant, but I think that the evaluation of the art work is much harder today due to the intermingling of the media and the appearance of new media for which we have no established value criteria. Hence, in this phase it is probably more important to write about the new media, because only through writing and theoretical re-examination we can come to a starting point of evaluation. When it comes to the re-examination of the values it is difficult to differentiate facts from values. And this is where mistakes happen. There are certain attitudes, like Richard Rorty's conceptual realism, that all facts are values because they had been subjected to a particular point of view, that the objective reality is cotradictio in adjecto. The relation between language and reality - whether we choose a realistic, nominal or conceptual approach - will also determine the attitude whether there should or could be a value criticism. My attitude would be a moderate one - that reality, despite all our different views, in fact does exists (at least some segments of reality) and it exists independently of us, and that we can always establish a critical attitude towards reality. The more diverse subjective criticism we have, from our personal aspect, the greater the chances are to obtain a more overall picture of the real place of a certain art project within the frames of art's current interest.

I.A.: Could you give a comment on the quality and freedom of the Macedonian art criticism today and your position both in and out of it.

S.M.: I have to say that I no longer feel that I am an art critic. This is due to my personal choice resulting from all the realisations mentioned in the answer to the first question, and also due to a more direct problem known as a conflict of interests. Namely, Skopje is a small place, the circle of people involved in contemporary art, whether they are critics, curators or artists, is very closed. When I started conceptualising and realising projects, I saw that writing about the projects of my colleagues would lead to the monopolisation of my position: no one took away my freedom to criticise their work, I myself felt that it would be unjust. I know that it is difficult to define this issue - a conflict of interests. Thomas Nagel has dedicated nearly an entire book The Mortal Questions to the conflict of interests, the political correctness and giving advantage. I think that this is a question of personal ethics and depends on the personal choice. I've chosen to write critical texts only on exhibitions held outside Macedonia and to publish promotional texts on our authors and exhibitions in foreign language magazines. No matter how hard I tried to be objective, I realised that the context of a situation in which I myself organise exhibitions or promote artists would influence their meaning.

I.A.: Regarding the Macedonian contemporary art - do you consider it as a scene and what is the direction it is moving to?

S.M.: Three or four years ago I wrote a text: 'Her Majesty - the Scene', which was the only censored text I ever wrote. It was a text on this subject and I was commissioned to write it for the only existing specialised magazine on fine-arts in Macedonia - The Large Glass published by the Museum of Contemporary Art. The Editorial board had decided not to publish it because it was too open and critical towards that particular phenomenon. My attitude has remained pretty much the same. Although there are many young artists working hard and gradually making their way in both home and abroad manifestations, I think that they are not sufficient to be defined as a scene. I don't see any liable structure depending on the artists conceptual definition or generation. There are only certain institutions promoting and favouring a particular number of artists which could be the beginning of a scene, but this is not happening with a consistent strategy. On the contrary, ignoring the problem of conflict of interests has led to a situation where the artists are not chosen according to the current happenings in the world art scene, but are instead, chosen according to some games of conspiracy and nepotism. And in the last decade when the fall of the Berlin Wall opened the doors of the world public for the East European artists, at the world manifestations, Macedonia continuously presents artists chosen according to the personal interest of the institutions and curators. There have been cases when artists chosen by foreign curators were discarded only because they did not belong to the clan. The monopolisation of several institutions by their directors also did not help in creating a constructive scene where the artist could attract the public attention. That was mainly due to the fact that there was no criticism (the blame for this partly goes to the papers and the magazines which do not consider criticism as necessary in establishing the editorial policy). In that text I held an attitude that the impression of a chaotic situation results from the absence of critical reflection on the part of theoreticians, lack of attitude towards reality, and there is only turning to a self-referential and self-indulgent game. The curatorial practice can not give an answer to that. There is a need for a critical reflection that will be an obligation for the critics and not the curators. The critics will be those to debate on the artistic activities in the country. So, only with a constructive interaction and balancing between the artists (whom we do not lack here in our state), the curators, the critics and the institutions in the sphere of fine-art can speak of a scene. In such conditions, the artists would have a chance to be successfully promoted.

I.A.: As a curator by profession, you are one of the most active ones in Macedonia. Do you follow the world trends in a certain topic from where the art works are initiated? Are you preoccupied by the trend, or maybe you take up a place somewhere in between?

S.M.: I would redefine the question about the trend into a question about the rules of the game. All of us who live and work, and try to function outside the states in the West do not have a lot of options. We either work in concordance with our local rules and ambitions, or we strive towards presentation in global frameworks where different rules of the game apply - the rules of globalism. And the globalism we are experiencing during the past decade is less global for some entities. It is not easy to keep a balance between the local predispositions and authentic interests on one side, and the demands of the global cultural network on the other. The information gained through the main instrument of globalism - the Internet - does not solve the problems of the contradictions between the local and the global. Maybe the only possible answer to this question is subversion and anarchy. Namely, to simulate the demanded trendy approach, and always to conceal something that's local and non-comprehensible for the foreigners.

Suzana Milevska: philosopher and art historian, curator at the Open Graphic Art Studio - Museum of the City of Skopje, Macedonia.