22 Nov 2016

Strategies and Tactics, Kortil Gallery, Rijeka

Artists:
Anton Čierny, Pavlína Fichta Čierna, Iva Durkáčová, Oto Hudec, Martin Kochan, Daniela Krajčová, Tamara Moyzes, Ilona Németh, Lucia Nimcová, Tomáš Rafa, Shlomi Yaffe, Anabela Žigová

Curator: Lýdia Pribišová

One could say that today artists are experts of a sort in conceiving new alternatives and finding inventive, unconventional ways of surviving. Our neo-liberal society, based on the dynamics of capital, hardly recognizes the symbolic or 'intangible' value of art, artists being forced either to ally with the market or occupy a marginal position in society that does not allow them to make a living from their very profession, art. This situation compels artists to employ and develop innovative structures of existence. This topic appears in the work of many artists in a broad range of forms. They look for creative ways and tactics to find their way in society. In their works, they often relate to and thematise the tactics of survival of minorities and powerless people, such as immigrants, Roma, people persecuted by totalitarian regimes and so on.

The main theme of the exhibition, a selection of Slovak contemporary video art, is based on the contraposition of strategy and tactics. Distinctions between them were proposed by the French philosopher Michel de Certeau in his book The Practice of Everyday Life (1984).

Strategy, in military terminology, is the domain of established superiority and of influence that is already partially affirmed; it is the program of leadership of the collective towards major conquests; it is the long-term plan of those who have the time and general knowledge to create a theoretical formulation. Strategy is the identification of key campaigns that are necessary to accomplish the main objective. Strategy means control (of a city, of an institution etc). According to de Certeau, the development of strategy emanates the purview of power. The exercise of strategy is connected with a place that can be circumscribed as a proper and thus serves as a basis for generating relations with exterior subjects. He argues that tactics are opposed to strategy. The place of tactics belongs to the other. So since the user of tactics has no base, tactics depend on time. That means flexibility, a combination of heterogeneous elements.

In contrast to strategy, de Certeau claims, tactics are the purview of the non-powerful. Tactics are more an adaptation to the environment, which has been created by the strategies of the powerful. It implies the creative processes as sharing and cooperation. Tactics are more partial, more contingent, consisting of adequate negotiation of the moment; they are the methods of the minority, actions that are intentional yet intuitive, and often more elastic and exploratory in relation to the objective. They are in a permanent and constant state of reassessment and correction.

The artists in this show use tactics of their own invention to detect and expose the strategies of mainstream society, and especially its utilitarian strategies. The artists' counter-actions show empathy, humor and flexibility. Through these instruments, various political strategies are shown to be empty and self-referential. As the control of strategy is never perfect, art is helping to find these gaps in the system.

The show Strategies and Tactics took place for the first time in the National Gallery in Tirana in 2015.

Supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council and Ministry of Culture HR.