Art is the practice of critical research on the present, starting with a feeling of dissatisfaction with reality. The power of art lies in its openness to possibilities other than the present situation, the practice of thought that seeks out what has not yet been thought in our world. In this sense, art has to question itself about its meaning and its role. The institutionalization of culture is an attempt to regulate, through governmental laws and specific statutes, an activity that by definition cannot operate with rules, unless as a process of the constitution of the work itself. The role of the contemporary artist in society seems to have weakened; but this represents the biggest possibility for an artistic practice that has to make its own rules, in contrast with existing ones, against the hypostatizing established by the laws and the statutes of cultural institutions. The artist, in this sense, cannot lay claim to rights, and no space recognized as cultural should be guaranteed as such. Being an artist is not a job: the artist should have less security than anyone, a professional figure cannot be acknowledged in art without degrading it to the status of a productive activity. Spaces of culture like cinemas, museums and theaters should be seen as loculi: places separated from the world, that should all be provocatively closed to see what remains. What remains is art. The most specifically human activities are those that transcend their given functions. Take the example of language: the faculty of speech can be seen as improper use of the digestive and respiratory systems, while the lips, mouth, tongue, trachea, pharynx are blocked from performing their biological function to be opened to other possibilities, like the ability to talk. Even a kiss can be defined as improper use of our digestive system. So we need to understand what it means to make art unproductive, also in case of the absence of work; what does it mean to make improper use of the spaces of culture?
To open up the possibilities for another art, to break up the places of culture, out in the open. Culture is what reflects – and forecasts – the possibilities of organization of life in a given society. The most proper meaning of art lies in making life possible otherwise.
LEONARDO CABIDDU
Studied philosophy in Rome and visual arts in Venice. Lives and works in Rome.