In September, 2016, New York Magazine published, “The Tyranny of Art History in Contemporary Art,” written by Jerry Saltz in response to the exhibition The Keeper at the New Museum. The show was a nesting doll of exhibition history, containing various imagined museums and personal collections in different techniques of display. The thirty exhibition contributors did not self-identify as artists or consider the work in the show to be art. In fact, only a small portion of the objects were on loan from art museums. Saltz highlighted that the makers and their expressions attempted to be non-linear, label-defying short-circuits of formulaic institutional critiques — a system he dubbed Zombie Art History. Saltz argued that classification systems within the discipline of art history are not adapting or adaptable to the frontiers of contemporary art.

Saltz’s claim is both significant and the walking-dead of arguments made by Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Svetlana Alpers decades ago. However, when Derrida meditated on the limitations of classifications of knowledge, he explicitly extended his analysis to include the concept of the archive, as in his book Archive Fever (1995). Jerry Saltz did not confront archival theory in his review, which is unfortunate, since it is an intellectual space that has responded rapidly to the concerns of his predecessors. Archives have the potential to be an unexpected foil for historical silos of information. Especially with the advent of community archives that are driven by public submissions, archives may be our best weapon in the battle for an inclusive record of artistic practice.

What Derrida debated and Saltz revived by proxy is the suspicion artists have about the authority, transparency, and neutrality of archives. At a recent Tilt West roundtable on Art in Time: Permanence, Ephemerality & Preservation, archivist and Founding Director of Denver’s community archive, ArtHyve, Jessie de la Cruz addressed the ways that archives have historically betrayed the record by omission. The group discussion that ensued revealed how contemporary artists perceive the value of the archive today. The shadow of the past looms large over archive theory, prompting a drastic destabilization of the visual arts archive since the late 20th century. According to Marleen Manoff in her essay “Theories of the Archive from Across the Disciplines,” archival theory — from the visual arts to the sciences — explores terms and concepts such as “social archive,” “the raw archive,” “the imperial archive,” “the postcolonial archive,” “the ethnographic archive,” “the geographical archive,” “archival consciousness,” and “archive cancer.” These terms reveal why so many artists — such as Fred Wilson, Mary Kelly, and Xiaoze Xie, to name a few — have found archival materials to be such a rich creative reservoir. The terms also demonstrate the extent to which the field of critical archival research is now working to address a problematic past.

Questions of ownership do still linger around the archive. Who owns the collection of artifacts? Who controls its presentation and mobility? At the Tilt West roundtable, performance artists asserted a desire that no one should own or record anything. Documentation of ephemeral modes of art production like performance can be elevated to art and assume a commodity value, so I understand the source of their distrust. However, the argument that the pitfalls of the art market or even time can be evaded by street artists or performers is confronted from within that community by artist Vito Acconci in Performance after the Fact (1993): “On the one hand, performance imposed the unsaleable onto the store that the gallery is. On the other hand, performance built that store up and confirmed the market-system: It increased the gallery’s sales by acting as window-dressing by providing publicity.” How an artwork reverberates into the market can’t be constrained, despite the artists’ best intentions. Creating a record of the contributors, the spaces, and the immediate impact of a performance event is manageable for future generations.

Another source of resistance to archives may reside in the skepticism some artists feel toward their own abilities to narrate their work. The temptation to edit out one’s failures and fears may be too great to resist, demonstrating that the only thing more flawed than memory is ego. As De la Cruz put it, “The art is the hero; the archive is the man — the flawed man — the human story. It is the trace of the body, the trace of the mind.” Her assertion recalls Sigmund Freud’s metaphor of the “Mystic Writing Pad.” The child’s writing pad allows marks with a stylus that are only visible when the waxy sheet is in contact with the reverse side of plastic. Although marks can be erased by separating the two surfaces, the trace of impressions never really leaves the dark deposit sheet. Freud leveraged this analogy to claim that every experience we have is informed by the traces of prior experiences. In this context, any work of art can be read as the culmination of many previous “marks.” Artists cannot always see these connections in their own work. For this reason, the interpretation of an archive is outside the control of the artist, and with each generation it will be reevaluated.

In “The Politics of the Liberal Archive,” historian Patrick Joyce insists that the modern archive can be the cornerstone of a free and informed society. We must preserve the past, because we cannot predict the future. Our collective memory starts with gathering the testimony of individuals. Photos, invoices, and journal entries can all provide insight into an artist’s interior world while also revealing chronological and geographic context, rivalries, collaborations, and important collectors. Inclusion, a term broadly used and under-executed, requires the participation of everyone in order to avoid the symbolic annihilation of certain groups of people from the artistic record. Inclusion insists on action rather than philosophizing about its benefits. This effort doesn’t necessarily have to start with large museums, which often have a top-down approach to staffing and programming. Instead, it can begin with individuals and organizations choosing to proactively contribute to the historical record. A community archive like ArtHyve provides such a platform. Archives like it represent hope for the democratization of art history.

Artist and filmmaker Laurie Anderson called for January 20th, 2018 to be named Art Action Day. Through a coalition known as The Federation, she asked artists and arts organizations across the globe to respond to the policies and rhetoric of the Trump Administration with creative community action. Here in Denver, in conjunction with Art Action Day and The Federation, and hours after the 2nd International Women’s March, a group of 30 artists, activists, curators, and curious people gathered at RedLine for Tilt West’s roundtable forum on The Lure of Spectacle in Politics and Art. The starting point for the conversation was Guy Debord’s seminal text, The Society of the Spectacle. Given the shifting state of contemporary art, the Denver gentrification boom, and the reality TV star who now occupies the White House, it is hard to find a more timely text to discuss than Debord’s 1967 treatise. Participants in the roundtable shared their anger towards the Trump Administration; considered the concept of spectacle in relation to Denver’s current art scene; and offered possible strategies to engage art and spectacle as tools of political resistance.

The conversation began with a prompt by filmmaker, DJ, and DIY organizer, Laura Conway. Conway tied Trump’s rise to power directly with his status as a reality TV star and highlighted his ability to always be at the center of public discourse. She connected the spectacle of our national politics to recent trends in the contemporary art world. As she pointed out: “Museums are now filled with tourists, Instagrammers, and, frankly, just normal people. Spectacular attractions make the museum a pedestrian place, one that many types of people might visit on a weekend afternoon. One person’s dumbing down may be another person’s democratization.”

Conway’s observation instantly focused the room on Denver’s next big art spectacle, Meow Wolf. It’s a welcome new tourist attraction in the eyes of the city’s developers, but for others it’s a sign that Denver’s DIY days may be coming to an end. As a recent transplant and newcomer to the Denver art world, I hadn’t fully considered how artists in this region would receive Meow Wolf. Many in the room expressed distrust of the Meow Wolf artists who have found a way to capitalize on the DIY space aesthetic and build it into a multi-city, profitable empire. Denver artists are welcome to hate on Meow Wolf. We wouldn’t be artists if we didn’t throw shade once in a while. I and other participants offered strategies for Meow Wolf’s impending arrival. Perhaps, instead of standing outside of the spectacle of Meow Wolf and passively watching its impact on the region, we should step inside and learn its tricks. Spectacle is everywhere in society today, and it’s powerful. Why not harness it to achieve our artistic and societal ends?

When describing the spectacle, Debord wrote, “It is not a supplement to the real world, an additional decoration. It is the heart of the unrealism of the real society.” Undoubtedly, this was an impending concern in 1967 in response to the prevalence of film and television, but a half-century later, the society of the spectacle has gained even greater traction with the arrival of the Internet, cell phones, and social media, and each of us plays a part in its perpetuation. It would be difficult to step away from these technologies and still maintain our professional and personal relationships. The spectacle — as Debord imagined it — has consumed our very existence.

In a world measured by likes and clicks, it is fair to say that the spectacle has become one of the primary rulers by which we measure our place in our culture. Clicks and likes provide instant feedback; they tell us how cute our dog is, or how impressive our meal is. This dynamic has inspired restaurants to install more camera-friendly lighting and has increased everyone’s self-policing and self-staging. A few years ago, I broke my arm in a bike accident. The thought of sympathy-clicks so disturbed me that every time I had to be in a group photo (which was surprisingly often), I would take off my sling and hide my arm brace behind something or under a jacket. The self that I presented to the world on Instagram and Facebook was one that was fully-functioning and required no one’s sympathy.

In his 2009 essay for e-flux titled “Self Design + Aesthetic Responsibility,” curator, theorist, and author Boris Groys wrote, “Where it was once a privilege and a burden for the chosen few, in our time, self-design has come to be the mass cultural practice par excellence.” Groys sees a world where our ability to be part of the spectacle, constructing our own image, has become one of our primary functions as participants in contemporary culture. He goes on to write, “The aestheticization of politics is similarly considered to be a way of substituting substance with appearance, real issues with superficial image-making.” This suggests that perhaps our power as artists to influence society has diminished; today, everyone can be entertainers and image-makers, and — because of this — politicians, too, have the ability to construct their own public images. Like everyone else, their actions are influenced by social media’s feedback loop.

When we consider the damage that Trump’s seemingly insatiable desire for retweets, likes, and clicks is doing to our economy, to vulnerable communities, and to our national discourse, it is easy to feel lost. It’s easy to blame the technology that he has employed for his rise to power. However, it’s far too simple and genuinely dangerous to dismiss Trump as mere spectacle. He is, unfortunately, very real. He is working to counteract the shifting demographic of America as a majority minority country, to keep power in the hands of wealthy, white Americans. His is an agenda of white supremacy and, while spectacle propelled his election success in 2016, it can also help us design the strategies we need to combat him.

Queer communities have often used the spectacle as both a mask and megaphone in times of crisis. The ballroom culture, made famous in Jennie Livingston’s 1991 documentary Paris is Burning, provided an opportunity for a group of queer people of color to perform wealth, power, and privilege that they couldn’t experience in their daily lives. For many in the 1980’s ballroom scene, the spectacle of voguing was both a creative and a political action. At a time when expressing their gender identity or sexuality in daily life meant risking their health, safety, and livelihood (this is still true in much of the world including most of the US), being themselves could only happen in a private space or in the safety of a dance hall. The AIDS crisis in the 1980’s inspired many creative actions like the Names Project and Act-Up. Each utilized spectacle to combat the Reagan administration’s willful inaction on AIDS research. We see time and time again that when a group of people is rendered powerless by outside forces, the power of spectacle can engage audiences and move social justice agendas forward.

Days after the 2016 election, at a moment when progressives and people of color were feeling defeated and powerless, the Chicago-based artist Aram Han Sifuentes started the Protest Banner Lending Library project. Her project teaches people to sew their own protest banners and serves as a library where people can lend or give protest banners. It started as a way to process her own feelings about the election and voice her thoughts on the state of our country, but it quickly it grew into a an international project. The library now contains hundreds of banners with phrases as hopeful as, “Fight Ignorance/ Not Immigrants,” and as reactive as, “FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!”

Other artists like Carole Frances Lung, based in Long Beach, California, are asking people to take a break from spectacle and slow down to contemplate what they can do in reaction to the current administration. Lung’s ongoing Mend America project is built around public workshops. Mend America invites participants to sew patches with an upside-down image of the American Flag embedded in a map of the United States. Participants finish their patches and then are asked to send a letter of thanks, a rant, or a call to action to an elected official. Lung ties the act of making to a direct political gesture. She catalogues the Mend America patches that are sent to hundreds of public officials. These messages are small but powerful statements. Their slowness and connection to the culture of the handmade gives them less visibility — but more creative currency — than a tweet.

In Denver, artists are also using this moment in our national conversation to build community around a collective response to the Trump Administration. This month, artist and curator Anna Kaye will launch an exhibition called Pink Progression at the Boulder Public Library, Denver Public Library, and Center for Visual Arts (in April). Her ambitious project (which I am humbled to be a part of) gathers together nearly 50 artists and writers to consider the color pink in relation to the Women’s March. The artists in the show have created workshops, writing, works of art, and participatory responses to gender roles, ‘pinkness,’ the Women’s March, and the Trump Administration. Kaye’s exhibition includes many voices but together their responses continue the conversations started by the first Women’s March.

The history of harnessing the spectacle as a political and creative tool, and the recent success of projects by local and national artists, suggests that our collective response to the spectacle of Trump has to be something greater than simply exasperation, anger, and fear. Instead, artists need to build communities that can support and sustain efforts to respond to political issues as they pop up, while also pursuing long-term goals tied to social justice and reform. In addition to designing DIY forms of protest, we must utilize all modes of the spectacle to resist. While Trump may be the pinnacle of the modern spectacle, it doesn’t belong to him. We as artists and activists must not shy away from the spectacle but instead take inspiration from Paris is Burning and own it!

Upon leaving Tilt West’s November, 2017 roundtable on Curators, Collectors, and the Shaping of Art History, which opened with Aspen Art Museum Curator Courtenay Finn’s astute comments, I was struck by the need to delineate the role that visionary collectors and curators play in the writing of art history. The visionary collector is not simply a consumer but an organized and strategic participant in the field at large.

Only days after the Tilt West conversation, we read the news of the painting Salvator Mundi, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, coming to auction and being sold for a staggering amount — the largest price tag on an artwork to date — a whopping four hundred and fifty million dollars for what might very well be the work of a different artist altogether. The art world and general public started and continue to spin and speculate. This is a politically charged discussion. Under an emerging paradigm in the global museum system, Saudi Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Farhan al-Saud, an associate of the progressive Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, made the historic acquisition of Salvator Mundi, on behalf of a young, still formulating, encyclopedic museum, the Louvre Abu Dhabi. The goal of this growing collection, as with others, is to assume a role as a catalyst in the shaping of art history. The debate over the provenance of Salvator Mundi rattles this effort.

Historically, great collections in cities like New York, London, and Paris have had the advantage of colonialism and its operating structures working on their behalf. Let’s take an example from the French. Upon the invasion of Egypt in 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte initiated the Description de l’Égypte, a series of publications cataloguing all aspects of ancient and modern Egyptian culture and natural history. These were completed by 1829. At the same time, another researcher and art collector — archaeologist, egyptologist, architect, and writer Emile Prisse d’Avennes — spent nineteen years documenting the art and architecture of ancient and Islamic Egypt. These endeavors resulted in encyclopedic registries of material culture from places that the French occupied and extracted from in order to build their own national collection. The market for art objects and artworks in our contemporary moment, a post-colonial time, operates differently. These differences shape the ways in which new museums, new centers of study and learning, and new hubs of knowledge and writing develop collections and programming.

During the Tilt West roundtable, one participant made reference to the seminal 1874 Impressionist exhibition in which thirty artists displayed 165 works at the photographer Nadar’s former studio at 35 Boulevard des Capucines. This example provides an historic context for the potential bond between dealer, collector, and curator — a bond that can support artists individually, and sometimes, as we know from the story of this group, collectively. Paul Durand-Ruel was one of two French art dealers who developed markets in Europe and the United States for the artists who came to be called the Impressionists and also the Barbizon School. This stunning example of a visionary collector continues to resonate in the ambitions of today’s collectors. Durand-Ruel’s commitment to new ways of interpolating pressing questions about experiments in painting is intriguing. Why was he willing to lose his shirt over these artists? Decades later, the prescient collector, Peggy Guggenheim befriended and supported a coterie of artists who lead the charge of Modernism as it has been canonized. Guggenheim’s support extended beyond simply developing markets for these artists; she also built institutions for intellectual exchange. Her legacy, alongside those institutions that bear her name, is writ large on the cityscapes of Venice, New York, Bilbao, and Abu Dhabi.

On November 28, 2017, Holland Cotter wrote an extensive and revealing article about Louvre Abu Dhabi, the new home of Salvator Mundi. He describes in vivid language an architecture that begs a visit, and an intelligent approach to building a collection given the constraints of the market (i.e., what objects are currently available). Equally important, Cotter conveys the institution’s perspective on collecting in a way that points to a prescriptive vision of the future. The challenges of articulating the cultural patrimony of an emerging nation in futuristic terms are a complex problem to solve in this era when pillage and plunder have been deemed unethical. Instead, nationally-celebrated museums like those in Abu Dhabi must negotiate long-term loans with partner institutions, such as the Paris Louvre, and carefully, slowly, assemble objects and works that articulate a view of culture in ways relevant to broader sweeps of humanity than previously seen. Cotter expresses his delight in the curatorial strategies used to animate a new and growing collection with an eye to building visual associations that transverse and transcend time and space. This is an important museum for any curator or collector to see, for it imagines a poetic future. I am curious to know its plans for disseminating its art historical perspective.

There are lessons to be learned from the depth and integration of different arms of art’s ecosystem. A consummate visionary collector, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, announced this year that a significant selection from her world-class collection of Latin American art would be distributed among museums with the capacity to steward these works. The Denver Art Museum is among the illustrious group, not only because of its stellar Spanish Colonial collection, but also because the collection is being historicized, theorized, and curated by a leading scholar in the field. The DAM’s Frederick and Jan Mayer Curator of Spanish Colonial Art, Jorge Rivas Pérez, by no coincidence, worked for many years at the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC). Patricia Phelps de Cisneros has had the vision to cultivate and support leading scholarly curators who have assumed significant roles globally. The well-thought out decisions of a collector of her caliber is an example that can serve emerging, powerful collectors, such as those behind the Louvre Abu Dhabi and others, like the Sharjah Art Foundation in the United Arab Emirates. These institutions are participating globally through the collection, creation, and presentation of visual art. Their reach will be furthered through endowing positions in museums, universities, and art schools throughout the world.

Agnes Gund has always been understood as a force for good through her collecting and philanthropy. This year, however, by a singular, focused decision, Ms. Gund has risen above the clutter and noise of the art world and set a visionary example. In many an interview you will find her expressing a deep attachment to different artworks she has acquired, and in some cases, when working with living artists, that attachment extends to the artist. Her decision to sell her prized 1962 Roy Lichtenstein Masterpiece to fund an initial donation of one hundred million dollars to establish the Art and Justice Fund has begun to inspire a much-needed shift among collectors. The reaction among peer philanthropists has been a steady flow of contributions to this necessary program through the cultivation of a group of founding donors. The donation was not made lightly. Ms. Gund has made the decision to translate Lichtenstein’s Masterpiece into a bold new effort to end mass incarceration. Through a coherent relationship with the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, this visionary collector has transformed the reach and power of this pop art painting. The humor of this choice is also not lost, for the painting’s fortuitous messaging imagines the artist’s future success in the New York art market.

The recent decisions of Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and Agnes Gund point to a bright future. This brings me back around to the Louvre Abu Dhabi and its stunning potential as a beacon for experimental, challenging curatorial work, through strong bonds with visionary collectors. I can see a new approach to art history, embodied by the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s approach to collecting and programming, which prioritizes the layers and complexities that inform cultural exchange and economies over the millennia and moving forward. Shifting perspectives conveyed through research, writing and discourse, partnered with visionary collectors, have the possibility of overriding prevailing art historical canons, whether the result of hegemonic imperialism or market-based speculation. I see the possibility of cultural institutions collaborating with collectors, curators, scholars and thinkers, to galvanize around intellectual and ethical stakes that are gaining traction in our fragmented, pluralistic artscape, allowing for a multiplicity of art histories to be written.

"Ultimately, America’s answer to the intolerant man is diversity." — Robert Kennedy

I remember the first time I noticed someone like me included in a mass market advertisement. The springy curls jumped out at me from the Target clothing ad on the side of a shopping cart, spurring me to literally gasp in surprise and excitement at the bouncy hair, coiled and untamed. My hair, usually the butt of sitcom jokes and “before” pictures on miracle conditioners, was being presented as intentional and welcome! Occurrences like this led me to understand that one of the most important requirements for a sense of inclusivity is representation. We need to see ourselves with seats at the various tables serving community. We have a hard time imagining that which we cannot readily observe. Every imagination utilizes the status quo as an inception point, and when our own image is not represented, we are left void of personal inspiration. This level of isolation in a society deeply scars those who experience it.

I know when to change my hair to something more socially acceptable to increase my chances of inclusion. I’ve oddly eschewed braces my entire life to avoid inclusion on some aesthetic goal that society has set for me. It’s easy to identify which vocal tone might get me included in a date/meeting/social invitation, which readily-digestible artistic representations might garner me invitations to stages and microphones. As a mixed black woman, born of the working/middle class, I have yet to decipher which code or collection of characteristics might more properly attain my equity in this society.

"Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity. Moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, reveling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community." ― bell hooks

Although the media and the public as a whole are currently engaged in a national conversation around racial politics, we each can’t help but see it all through our own unique lens. Our personal experience gives texture to, and finds context within, the larger national narrative. We are all reflecting on that which we feel we’ve been offered or allowed access to, and that which we’ve not.

Despite the boundary-crossing love of my parents, my family is not exactly a melting pot. Being mixed black, the shape of my extended family has been completely defined by each person’s ability, or lack thereof, to embrace racial inclusion. Years and holidays and memories have been missed because of an idea born before I or my siblings came along — an idea that was supposedly rectified by the “Loving vs. Virginia” case of 1967. Many of us are stunned by the reactionary attitudes of some of our fellow Americans. Didn’t we already have these conversations, march these marches, and fight these fights? No court case could ever change a heart, though, and now we’re learning how rigidly a mind can cling to dangerous relics of the past.

One snapshot of the challenges around inclusivity in our divided nation is my small-town, Iowa-bred aunt cooing over pictures of my very brown and very liberally-raised daughter, while simultaneously posting pro-Trump memes about the horrors of single motherhood and sensationalist stories about black-on-black violence. What a Thanksgiving this would make (if we ever spent one together, of course)! Can there be room in an inclusive national dialogue for a mindset that literally denies the humanity and agency of others? We can include you so long as you remove some of those limbs, take up less space and require less consideration.

"We are less when we don’t include everyone." — Stuart Milk

This month, on November 9th, Apple released its first diversity report under a new VP of Diversity and Inclusion. The same day, Forbes ran an article discussing the measurement of diversity and inclusion, touching on some of the common quandaries one comes across when contemplating the subject. Even if we can define the basic metrics of diversity, how do we measure the more subjective experience of inclusion? And how do we assess the impact of broader representation as it relates to social cohesion and a deeper understanding of others?

It’s interesting how these words — diversity and inclusion/inclusivity — so often travel together. In the recent Tilt West roundtable, prompter Suzi Q. Smith defined Diversity as the condition of having or being composed of differing elements, and Inclusivity as an intention or policy of including people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized. Whether America is viewed as a melting pot or a mosaic, the contact points at which we lean into or pull away from our differences with others define our national culture and our trajectory as a people.

Each of us must decide how we will interact with others whose political, spiritual, or economic beliefs differ from our own. We all know how distasteful it can be to ask about a friend’s politics. At this point, however, some find delving into these personal stances less distasteful than breaking bread with someone who (at least in theory) does not believe in a perceived “outsider’s” right to a plate. These are painful and taxing conundrums, tearing families apart in many cases. In this increasingly dire time when so many use fear as a weapon, how uncomfortable are we willing to be for the sake of one another? Find a safe level of discomfort and explore it. Seek and celebrate differences. Question your security. If we are not able to recognize (and literally re-cognize) our personal interactions and attachments, any further conversation about inclusion is futile.

"No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive." — Mahatma Gandhi

A participant in Tilt West’s September roundtable on Art and Activism said afterward, “What you are doing is activist: getting people together in person and in conversation in a free flowing and non-hierarchical way.” Tilt West aims to catalyze the cultural conversation in the greater Denver arts community. To that end, and as a continuation of our conversation on Art and Activism, we invite you to join artists and arts organizations across the country in participating in a Day of Art Action on January 20, 2018.

The Day of Art Action is the brainchild of filmmaker Laurie Anderson and a group that Tilt West has joined, called The Federation. The event is a response to pressures on arts organizations in the current environment. The Day of Art Action will celebrate the idea that art unites; it will showcase the fact that art is in every community across the country. Artists and art organizations are invited to mark the day in whatever way they deem appropriate and to post their activities on social media.

To sign up to participate, and for a free, downloadable, Day of Art Action toolkit, please go to the Federation’s website, www.wearethefederation.org, and see the attached flier. We hope to see broad participation by Denver area artists and arts organizations. You are also welcome to contact us at info@tiltwest.org.

To mark the Day of Art Action on January 20th, Tilt West will be hosting a special roundtable discussion on The Lure of Spectacle in Politics and Art.

Traditionally, spectacle derives its appeal from its visual power to engage an emotive response in the viewer — a notable goal of art. Although spectacle is endemic to theater and performance (Aristotle’s Poetics, for example, discusses the proper arrangement of dramatic elements to elicit an emotional response from the audience), the use of spectacle crosses virtually all artistic genres.

With the advent of technology, philosophers and social thinkers from Roland Barthes to Marshall McLuhan observed a temporal and spatial separation between the spectator and the spectacle. For Guy Debord, the political and consumer apparatus hijacked the artistic vehicle and created a situation in which authentic social life became replaced with its representation.

With the dominance of social and digital media and the presence of algorithms in today’s society, we’ve experienced another leap in the iteration of spectacle. This roundtable will discuss the use and abuse of spectacle — its potential for both destructive and generative ends as applied to political and artistic expression in the current environment.

Stay tuned for more information on this upcoming roundtable in the coming weeks.

This August, Tilt West facilitated a roundtable discussion on Development, Displacement, & the Arts, at RedLine’s 48 Hours of Socially Engaged Art & Conversation Summit. Lydia Hooper of Fountain Visual Communications was there to make a graphic recording of the discussion (pictured above).

Denver is changing. Mayor Hancock told radio host Ryan Warner that, “[t]he vibrancy of this city is to have a diversity of residents. We don’t want to ever be known as a city of just those who have.” Jonathan Thompson, High Country News, Nov. 24, 2014. I grew up in Denver in the 1980s and 90s. I then lived on the coasts for much of the 2000s before returning to my hometown a few years ago. I’m both a native and a transplant: I appreciate the city’s history, and I am not opposed to its changes. But we need to reflect on not just what we see changing across Denver, but how those changes are occurring and what the pace and character of those changes says about us as a community.

One of the conclusions of Tilt West’s August 2017 roundtable discussion of “Development, Displacement, and the Arts,” was that Denverites claim to support the arts and artists, but the incentives in our local economic and political systems instead encourage rapid growth over thoughtful and inclusive change. I believe that we need to transform cultural capital into political capital in order for Denver to change in a way that incorporates art and diversity. Before sharing a few ideas on how to do that, I’d like to explore the difference between gentrification and artistic revitalization, and the different types of capital.

I have always struggled with the term “gentrification” because it tends to elicit a visceral revulsion. It is clearly more than just “look, another coffee shop has moved in on the corner” and “look, more condos!” It includes the idea that a formerly eclectic neighborhood is now more homogenous, a formerly low to mixed-income neighborhood is now expensive and out of reach for “regular folks” and, most pointedly, a formerly ethnic neighborhood is now full of white people who might never have set foot in the area when it hosted 50+ year old family businesses, but are everywhere now that the boutiques and craft breweries have arrived.

One of the roundtable participants challenged us to distinguish between gentrification and artistic revitalization, which is what we saw initially in an area like RiNo where older, neglected industrial warehouse spaces were reclaimed by artists for workspaces and galleries. His point was that gentrification displaces while revitalization enhances; gentrification replaces while revitalization reinvents; and gentrification forgets while revitalization remembers and incorporates the past and the existing neighborhood character. That very revitalization, however, often creates what some reluctantly admit is “cultural capital,” which in turn raises property values and ultimately invites investment of monetary capital to a neighborhood.

So, let’s talk about capital. A lot of the Tilt West discussion revolved around the tension between the inherent value of art, which breeds cultural cache in a given geographic area and raises property values, and the money that is ultimately drawn into that area from the outside by those who want to trade their dollars for cultural capital. The prompter of the roundtable, Yong Cho, noted that “one of the great values of artists is they challenge the status quo, they make you think, they push you forward.” I agree and consider this to be an intrinsic value of artists and the art that they produce. Once that intrinsic value converts into cultural capital, however, money, an item of extrinsic value, often follows. So, where once we saw low-priced collaborative live-work spaces used by artists, we now see high-priced townhomes; where once there was an informal gallery, now there is a craft brewery; and so on.

I would argue that we need to monetize the cultural capital that artists build, because that cultural capital is the reason that developers are attracted to the area in the first place. Both as compensation and to retain the cultural cache of a neighborhood, new development needs to provide affordable living and working spaces for artists, and to integrate art in projects in more than a “token” way.

These sorts of changes require different incentives in our local economic and political systems. Unfortunately, items of intrinsic value like art are rarely fully valued until they are threatened or gone. The extrinsic value of outside money is winning. The only way to change things is for artists to organize and raise their voices: make demands of elected officials; change the incentive structures; tap into the idea that we don’t just want a bland city of those who have; make the point that eventually people won’t flock to the city or its developments if it’s all shopping malls. Citizen engagement is an important part of the process. If we want to foster and maintain inclusive neighborhoods, newcomers — both artists and developers — must engage with the community that is already in place.

We aren’t going to stop new development. Nor do I think we should. Artists can, however, demand a seat at the table when affordable workspaces and housing are threatened. Everyone is busy but being heard requires getting out in front of new site plans, development proposals, and urban planning initiatives. It’s much harder to be effective once decisions have already been made. My hope is that the same artists who challenge the status quo, make the rest of us think, and push us forward with their work will put some of that energy and creativity toward engaging with our local elected and business leaders regarding the value that art and artists bring to the broader community, beyond making a neighborhood “hip” and “up and coming” for the next project that displaces them.

This May, Tilt West facilitated a roundtable discussion on Art, Community, and Conflict, at Colorado Creative Industries’ 2017 Summit in Breckenridge. Lydia Hooper of Fountain Visual Communications was there to make a graphic recording of the discussion (pictured above).

In 1881, Paul Gauguin wrote to Camille Pissarro, “There is a theory I have heard you profess, that to paint it is absolutely necessary to live in Paris, so as to keep up with the ideas.” The artist who ultimately paints his greatest work on an island in the South Pacific, pondering if he needs to be among art masters to become one himself, is beyond ironic. Historically, however, primary markets — both economic and intellectual — were highly centralized. Propinquity allowed critics to argue, enabled artists to see the work of contemporaries, and turned collectors into patrons. Ideas were produced in places like New York or Paris and diffused outward. Is this still true today? Can an artistic community feel isolated in a virtually connected world? Certainly, even a city dweller hiding behind a smart phone can feel as isolated as an artist in the Roaring Fork Valley. It boils down to the phenomenological claim that one does not really exist unless acknowledged by an outside source. In a 2011 New York Times article about the California arts festival, Pacific Standard Time, an art critic and university professor called the festival “corny” in its title, scale, and extended time line, ending with, “it’s the sort of thing that Denver would do.” The general exclusion of the Rocky Mountain region from the national art market discussion does affect more than the psyche of artists in Denver.

Denver may not be as isolated as Tahiti, but the city’s creative contributors are marginalized when one considers who actively participates in the international art world. In Sarah Thornton’s book Seven Days in the Art World, she notes that the art world is not just a place where people work but reside full time, “a ‘symbolic economy’ where people swap thoughts and where cultural worth is debated rather than determined by brute wealth.” As Thornton highlights, “great works do not just arise; they are made.” How an artist moves from a small Denver art gallery to a museum wall is not simple or a matter of luck. That promotion requires the support of dealers, critics, curators, and collectors.

So when only a few Denver art galleries participate in one or two mid-size international art fairs, that is a concern. When many of the top art collectors in America have homes in Aspen, and the world-renowned Aspen Art Museum never shows a Colorado artist, we have a problem. When editors based in New York City, like those at ARTnews, voice concerns on professional panels about disappearing local reporters and papers from periphery art cities, killing the informational pipeline, we should pay attention, because these are the reasons our artists worry. Artists see the growth of Denver and maneuver through the consequences of urban development, but the benefits to our creative community are lagging.

According to economists Uri Gneezy and John List, people support the arts and give to charities for three reasons: the warm-glow of helping others, self-interest (tax benefits or investment), and a motive called follow-the-leader. An example of follow-the-leader is when a potential donor is incentivized to donate due to a charity starting a fundraising campaign with a high seed level. This seed money motivates the next donor for many reasons: presumably the initial donor did the research into the legitimacy of the charity; a donation places the individual in a desirable social circle; and the presence of the seed money appeals to donors who are risk-averse. Despite the recent population growth that places Colorado as one of the top seven fastest growing states and despite the increased wealth that accompanies such growth (have you seen home prices?), artists continue to complain about the lack of funding through typical avenues such as government grants, private foundations, and corporate sponsors. According to the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts, artists are right. Nearly one-fifth of new money coming into the state’s cultural sector last year was in the form of federal grants. Philanthropic giving to the arts increased in 2016, but only enough to put us on pace with national trends. That means in Colorado there is no follow-the-leader impact…yet. How does the cultural sector reach new audiences in a measurable way to grow the purse?

One solution proposed at the Tilt West roundtable on Regional History and Potential was a renewed focus on the work. As the theory goes, when the art has substance and is worth protecting, the money will show up. Tell that to van Gogh. It is a shared principle in the art world that nothing is more important than the art. As author Sarah Thornton points out “some people believe this; others know it’s de rigueur.” What I hear — and agree with — is that we should embrace solutions like developing Aurora as a potential art center and relax the grip on a neighborhood like RiNo that is pricing everyone out. We should also acknowledge that discourse does not occur when we use assumptions as evidence, and better discourse is the necessary foundation for Denver to be a formidable art force. Raise your hand if you want to read on Saturday instead of ski. That is what must happen if Denver wants to take the stage as one of the next great American art cities.

The 2013 book, Art Cities of the Future: 21st-Century Avant-Gardes proposes a broadening definition of an art capital with cities like Bogotá, Johannesburg, and Vancouver demonstrating successful and unconventional infrastructures. The text highlights the tremendous potential for a place like Denver while bypassing the problematic discussion of whether our city will be the next great version of a city that already exists. For example, Redline and Lighthouse Writers Workshop provide professional development and public service that many American cities find enviable. The money raised through the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District tax is one major reason Denver’s creative community quickly recovered after the great recession and continues to add jobs to our cultural institutions. Gallery directors testify that museum curators from the state regularly walk into local galleries to see Colorado artists. Curator Jose Roca in Art Cities of the Future notes that the emerging art capitals had “no outside intervention,” and the local scenes thrived without the pressures of the art market, not in spite of its absence. It is a powerfully persuasive argument that Denver does not have to follow existing urban blueprints; it may still carve an unexpected, yet smart and satisfying route.