“今天艺术默认地否定了自己” － 让·波德里亚
当代艺术只与它自己当代了
Contemporary Art: Art Contemporary with Itself
文／让·波德里亚
（翻译成英文克里斯·特纳）
这篇短文的最初印刷稿是部分引于尚·布希亞的《清晰条约或恶的智能》（2004），原著于2005年被翻译成英文。
现代艺术的冒险结束了。当代艺术只与他自己当代了。面对过去和未来，它不存在任何超越； 唯一的现实就是在现实时间中的运作以及与此现实本身的混淆。
现在没有任何东西把它从技术、宣传、媒体和数字化操作中区分出来。不再有超越和分歧，再也没有另一幅场景：只是反映当代世界的游戏，就好像它所发生的那样。这就在于当代艺术这样的毫无价值：在它和这个世界的方程式之间只有零添加。
且不谈创造者和消费者在观察“奇怪”、无法解释的物品的那种无耻同谋。这些光涉及到他们自己以及艺术的概念，真正的阴谋也就在这个艺术自己给自己建造的同谋。艺术跟现实的共谋，而仅仅变成它的一个反映。再也没有微分艺术。只存在现实的微积分。目前，在艺术实现的过程当中它变成一个被滥用的观念。
现代性是从现实到简单元素的解构主义和具体分析的黄金时代，先是印象派，再是抽象派，实验性地对感性、知觉、对象结构和形式解构等各方面开放。
抽象的悖论就在于：通过把特定对象从其约束的形象中解放出来，达到对形式的纯粹玩味。这种做法将它与隐匿的结构镣铐在一起——与其相似性相比，对象本身更加严格和激进。这被视为将形象和相似性的面具搁在一旁，来进一步实现对对象真实性的分析。在抽象的旗帜下，我们朝着现实，朝着揭开事物“基本结构”的方向，似是而非地前进着。也就是说，朝着比真实更加真实前进。
相反的，在一般审美化的旗帜下，艺术侵入了整个现实领域。
这段历史的结束见证了艺术的平庸融入了现实世界的平庸——杜尚的行为，与对象本身的自动转移，在过程中就位（带有讽刺性）的手势。所有从现实到美学的转移，已经变为广义交换的重要特征之一。
这些也都在艺术和现实世界解放的旗帜下操作。这个“解放”其实相当于互相指出——而这个指出对两种都致命。艺术的转移到现实变成无效，因为艺术吸收了它否定、超越、理想化的所有的事情。变成一个不可能的现实交换。就说它跟自己交换，而永远重复自己。
那么什么东西关于艺术的精神可以让我们放心？艺术也就是艺术世界里、绝望与自我痴迷社区的争论。“创意”行动在对折自己，而变成自己操作的符号——画家的真正主题不再是他所画的东西，而是“他在画”这一事实。起码，这样的话，艺术的概念还是完整的。这个是阴谋的其中一方面。另外一方面是观众为了 了解所有的一切按照这些把自己的文化消耗掉。他消耗他什么都不懂以及这些都没有任何必要除非因为文化的需求，这个事实，其实也就是为了属于文化循环。但文化也是全球循环的副作用。
艺术的概念被减弱以及极简化了，引导概念艺术，引导在非画廊里非作品的非展览——艺术的崇拜作为一个非事件。
作为推论，消费者在这些循环来体验他对作品的非享受。
按照一个概念、极简的最极端逻辑，艺术应该消失掉。在这个程度，毫无疑问它就会变成它现在的状况：一个虚假的问题；而每一种美学也都变成一种假的解决。但其实也就是因为没什么可说所以必须说很多。艺术民主化的运动矛盾地把艺术这个概念的位置加强了，到达这个普遍赘言顶点为“艺术是艺术”。在这个循环里任何东西就能够找到自己的位置。就像Marshall McLuhan说“我们现在意识到能够按照一个艺术作品安排整个人类环境”。
当代艺术的革命想法是任何物品、任何世界的细节或局部能够引起同样一个引诱感也可以提出一些以前只属于高档形式所谓艺术作品。这个也就是真正民主的基础：不是所有的人对美学享受的接近，但是一个任何物品可以享受15分钟名声的一个世界的穿越美学。所有的物品都属于同一个平台，所有的东西都是天才做出来的。它的推论是，艺术与作品的改变成为一个物品，没有幻想，没有超越，一个被拆掉的物品的纯粹概念行为，而这些物品也把让我们迷茫。再也没有脸、没有目光、没有人表情或身体——没有身体、没有分子的器官，只有分形。跟作品的关系属于传染的、污染的：你被它钩到了然后你被它吸收掉，相当于在一个流动或网络系统一样。 转喻序列、 连锁反应.再也没有一个真的物品：在现成品的情况下物品已经不在了，而是物品的概念，而我们不能够通过这个去享受艺术，但是通过艺术的概念。我们完全属于一个思想体系。而最后现代艺术和当代艺术的双重诅咒都属于“现成品”：被现实和普遍性沉浸的诅咒，以及被艺术思想概念地吸收掉。“。。。这个毕加索的荒唐雕塑，跟金属 花梗和树叶；没有翅膀，没有胜利，只是一个证据、一个痕迹——艺术作品的想法，而不是其他的。跟激励我们生命的其他想法和痕迹一样——不是苹果，但想法，一个由果品学家做的关于苹果原来是什么东西的重建——不是冰淇淋，但想法，一个很好吃的、用 淀粉、糖以及其他化学物品做的东西——不是性，而是性的想法——跟爱情、信仰、思想等其他东西都一样⋯⋯“。
艺术自己没有任何意义。是一个指标什么都没有的符号。但这个‘什么都没有和’空虚的透视在这个已经没有意义和现实的当代世界里变成什么？艺术只能跟总的无价值和忽略连在一起。它再也没有任何特殊定位。它出了世界交流、网络和互动之外再也没有其他目标。发信息和收信息都在同一个循环里：都是发信息的人也都是收信息的人。每个人跟自己互动，只关注表达自己而没时间跟其他人互相听。网络明显地提高那种为自己传播的可能性，所有的人都加自己的虚拟行为而参与整个窒息。所以，在艺术的情况下，最有趣的是侵入现在观众的海绵状脑。因为神秘也就在这里：在收信息道的人的脑袋里，到他们对“艺术作品”服务的神经中心。这个秘密是什么？这个秘密在于“有创造力艺术家”对物品和对自己的苦行与消费者对自己和自己的大脑功能的苦行之间。对最差的物品的宽容明显地提高成一种整个同谋的功能。界面和行为——这个是两个强调方面。行为领域里，所有表达方式出现——综合媒体、摄影、录像、装置、互动屏幕。 这个垂和横、美学和商业多样化属于作品的一部分，无法定居的最根本的核心。一个（非）事件像“黑客帝国”完全说明这些：是一个典型全球装置、全球事件：不光是电影（电影从某一个角度是托辞) 而是它的副产品，在全球的不同地方同步投影让几百万观众紧密参与它。我们从一个全球互动角度来看都是这个全球事实的演员。
摄影当被数码技术处理过、被拼出来也碰到同样一个问题。这个一往一个无终点、无规则的方向去发展，是摄影的死亡，摄影被提高到行为的位置上。在这个全球混合，每一个分类失去了它的特点——就像每个人在网络失去了主权——就像现实和图像，艺术和现实因为再也不是两个极端所以失去了它们的力量。
从19世纪开始，艺术一直声称自己是无用的。它一直为这个感觉傲气（古典艺术的情况不一样，当时有没有用这个问题都不存在）。如果继续发展这个理论，就可以让任何物品变成无用的而让它变成一个作品。而这个也就是“现成品”做的事情，直接让一个物品脱离它的功能，其他就没有改变，而这样让它变成一个画廊作品。也足够把现实变成一个无用功能而让它变成一个艺术作品，变成普遍性美学的受害者。同样，一些旧的，所以过时和无用的，物品自动得了一种美学魅力。它们离我们的时间距离相当于杜尚的艺术行动；它们也变成“现成品”，被我们美术馆世界复活的怀旧痕迹。我们也可以推论这个美学变形到材料制作。当它接近一个已经不是为了社会财富交换的窗口，它变成一个超现实物品，被美学控制，而在一种虚拟美术馆出现。所以也有技术环境的美术馆化用一个工业荒地形式，像“现成品”一样。无用的逻辑只能把当代艺术引导一个损耗偏爱，而这个本来也是无用的。通过损耗、损耗的图像、损耗的困扰，艺术就大声宣布它的无用。它说明它的无用价值，它的无交换价值，同事把自己卖的很贵。这里有一个误解。“无用”也是有价值。是一个副作用，因为它这样为了这个阴性本质而牺牲目标，所以艺术完全脱离了常轨进去一个无用的免费性。跟之前的理论关于“宣布自己的很差”的理论差不多，宣布无意义、无价值和普遍性，这些都变成一种双重美学借口。“反艺术”尽量逃避美学范围。但自从“现成品”跟普遍性合并了，这些都结束了。无意义、无具象、卑劣、异议的单纯也结束了。这些当代艺术希望当或回去的事情加强这个反艺术的强制美学特点。
艺术一直否定了自己。但它以前是通过过度性、演自己的消失。今天艺术是默认地否定自己——比这个还可怕，它否定自己的死亡。它不是现实杀手的象征代表，也不是它的消失的魔力操作者，而它反过来把自己沉浸于现实。这里的矛盾是，它越接近这个现象的混乱：这个作为艺术的“差”，越又人给它一种价值，就按照Canetti说，我们到了一个阶段没有好看难看的问题；我们无意识地过了这个过程，然后因为我们不能够回去到这个地步，我们也只能继续操作艺术的消灭。
最后，这个无用性的功能目标是什么？这个无用性从那个方面解放我们？像政治家一样，他们从权利责任解放我们，当代艺术作为不连贯的技巧，通过提供无意义表演给我们让我们从意义解放。这个也解释它的扩大：跟美学价值无关它通过它的无意义和虚空发展。就像一个没有可信性或代表性的政治家忍受的一样。所以艺术和艺术市场按照他们的衰落就繁荣：他们是文化的现代具体房子也是幻影。
那么这样的话，说当代艺术不值得是毫无意义，因为它是它自己的生存功能：它来说明我们的无用性和荒谬. 更准确地说，它让衰落变成一种生意，同时也让它变成一种表演。如果，像一些人说，艺术功能是让生活比艺术更有趣，那么我们可以把这个幻想忘记掉。我们感觉目前的大部分艺术参与一个威慑操作, 一个关于图像和想象力的悲痛作品，一个——几乎失败的——悲痛美学作品引导艺术世界的总的忧郁，而这个世界通过整修自己的历史和痕迹生存自己的死亡。
但艺术、美学都不是唯一的命定到这个不是超越目标而是超越他们结束的忧郁命运，
Contemporary Art: Art Contemporary with Itself
文／让·波德里亚
（翻译成英文克里斯·特纳）
这篇短文的最初印刷稿是部分引于尚·布希亞的《清晰条约或恶的智能》（2004），原著于2005年被翻译成英文。
现代艺术的冒险结束了。当代艺术只与他自己当代了。面对过去和未来，它不存在任何超越； 唯一的现实就是在现实时间中的运作以及与此现实本身的混淆。
现在没有任何东西把它从技术、宣传、媒体和数字化操作中区分出来。不再有超越和分歧，再也没有另一幅场景：只是反映当代世界的游戏，就好像它所发生的那样。这就在于当代艺术这样的毫无价值：在它和这个世界的方程式之间只有零添加。
且不谈创造者和消费者在观察“奇怪”、无法解释的物品的那种无耻同谋。这些光涉及到他们自己以及艺术的概念，真正的阴谋也就在这个艺术自己给自己建造的同谋。艺术跟现实的共谋，而仅仅变成它的一个反映。再也没有微分艺术。只存在现实的微积分。目前，在艺术实现的过程当中它变成一个被滥用的观念。
现代性是从现实到简单元素的解构主义和具体分析的黄金时代，先是印象派，再是抽象派，实验性地对感性、知觉、对象结构和形式解构等各方面开放。
抽象的悖论就在于：通过把特定对象从其约束的形象中解放出来，达到对形式的纯粹玩味。这种做法将它与隐匿的结构镣铐在一起——与其相似性相比，对象本身更加严格和激进。这被视为将形象和相似性的面具搁在一旁，来进一步实现对对象真实性的分析。在抽象的旗帜下，我们朝着现实，朝着揭开事物“基本结构”的方向，似是而非地前进着。也就是说，朝着比真实更加真实前进。
相反的，在一般审美化的旗帜下，艺术侵入了整个现实领域。
这段历史的结束见证了艺术的平庸融入了现实世界的平庸——杜尚的行为，与对象本身的自动转移，在过程中就位（带有讽刺性）的手势。所有从现实到美学的转移，已经变为广义交换的重要特征之一。
这些也都在艺术和现实世界解放的旗帜下操作。这个“解放”其实相当于互相指出——而这个指出对两种都致命。艺术的转移到现实变成无效，因为艺术吸收了它否定、超越、理想化的所有的事情。变成一个不可能的现实交换。就说它跟自己交换，而永远重复自己。
那么什么东西关于艺术的精神可以让我们放心？艺术也就是艺术世界里、绝望与自我痴迷社区的争论。“创意”行动在对折自己，而变成自己操作的符号——画家的真正主题不再是他所画的东西，而是“他在画”这一事实。起码，这样的话，艺术的概念还是完整的。这个是阴谋的其中一方面。另外一方面是观众为了 了解所有的一切按照这些把自己的文化消耗掉。他消耗他什么都不懂以及这些都没有任何必要除非因为文化的需求，这个事实，其实也就是为了属于文化循环。但文化也是全球循环的副作用。
艺术的概念被减弱以及极简化了，引导概念艺术，引导在非画廊里非作品的非展览——艺术的崇拜作为一个非事件。
作为推论，消费者在这些循环来体验他对作品的非享受。
按照一个概念、极简的最极端逻辑，艺术应该消失掉。在这个程度，毫无疑问它就会变成它现在的状况：一个虚假的问题；而每一种美学也都变成一种假的解决。但其实也就是因为没什么可说所以必须说很多。艺术民主化的运动矛盾地把艺术这个概念的位置加强了，到达这个普遍赘言顶点为“艺术是艺术”。在这个循环里任何东西就能够找到自己的位置。就像Marshall McLuhan说“我们现在意识到能够按照一个艺术作品安排整个人类环境”。
当代艺术的革命想法是任何物品、任何世界的细节或局部能够引起同样一个引诱感也可以提出一些以前只属于高档形式所谓艺术作品。这个也就是真正民主的基础：不是所有的人对美学享受的接近，但是一个任何物品可以享受15分钟名声的一个世界的穿越美学。所有的物品都属于同一个平台，所有的东西都是天才做出来的。它的推论是，艺术与作品的改变成为一个物品，没有幻想，没有超越，一个被拆掉的物品的纯粹概念行为，而这些物品也把让我们迷茫。再也没有脸、没有目光、没有人表情或身体——没有身体、没有分子的器官，只有分形。跟作品的关系属于传染的、污染的：你被它钩到了然后你被它吸收掉，相当于在一个流动或网络系统一样。 转喻序列、 连锁反应.再也没有一个真的物品：在现成品的情况下物品已经不在了，而是物品的概念，而我们不能够通过这个去享受艺术，但是通过艺术的概念。我们完全属于一个思想体系。而最后现代艺术和当代艺术的双重诅咒都属于“现成品”：被现实和普遍性沉浸的诅咒，以及被艺术思想概念地吸收掉。“。。。这个毕加索的荒唐雕塑，跟金属 花梗和树叶；没有翅膀，没有胜利，只是一个证据、一个痕迹——艺术作品的想法，而不是其他的。跟激励我们生命的其他想法和痕迹一样——不是苹果，但想法，一个由果品学家做的关于苹果原来是什么东西的重建——不是冰淇淋，但想法，一个很好吃的、用 淀粉、糖以及其他化学物品做的东西——不是性，而是性的想法——跟爱情、信仰、思想等其他东西都一样⋯⋯“。
艺术自己没有任何意义。是一个指标什么都没有的符号。但这个‘什么都没有和’空虚的透视在这个已经没有意义和现实的当代世界里变成什么？艺术只能跟总的无价值和忽略连在一起。它再也没有任何特殊定位。它出了世界交流、网络和互动之外再也没有其他目标。发信息和收信息都在同一个循环里：都是发信息的人也都是收信息的人。每个人跟自己互动，只关注表达自己而没时间跟其他人互相听。网络明显地提高那种为自己传播的可能性，所有的人都加自己的虚拟行为而参与整个窒息。所以，在艺术的情况下，最有趣的是侵入现在观众的海绵状脑。因为神秘也就在这里：在收信息道的人的脑袋里，到他们对“艺术作品”服务的神经中心。这个秘密是什么？这个秘密在于“有创造力艺术家”对物品和对自己的苦行与消费者对自己和自己的大脑功能的苦行之间。对最差的物品的宽容明显地提高成一种整个同谋的功能。界面和行为——这个是两个强调方面。行为领域里，所有表达方式出现——综合媒体、摄影、录像、装置、互动屏幕。 这个垂和横、美学和商业多样化属于作品的一部分，无法定居的最根本的核心。一个（非）事件像“黑客帝国”完全说明这些：是一个典型全球装置、全球事件：不光是电影（电影从某一个角度是托辞) 而是它的副产品，在全球的不同地方同步投影让几百万观众紧密参与它。我们从一个全球互动角度来看都是这个全球事实的演员。
摄影当被数码技术处理过、被拼出来也碰到同样一个问题。这个一往一个无终点、无规则的方向去发展，是摄影的死亡，摄影被提高到行为的位置上。在这个全球混合，每一个分类失去了它的特点——就像每个人在网络失去了主权——就像现实和图像，艺术和现实因为再也不是两个极端所以失去了它们的力量。
从19世纪开始，艺术一直声称自己是无用的。它一直为这个感觉傲气（古典艺术的情况不一样，当时有没有用这个问题都不存在）。如果继续发展这个理论，就可以让任何物品变成无用的而让它变成一个作品。而这个也就是“现成品”做的事情，直接让一个物品脱离它的功能，其他就没有改变，而这样让它变成一个画廊作品。也足够把现实变成一个无用功能而让它变成一个艺术作品，变成普遍性美学的受害者。同样，一些旧的，所以过时和无用的，物品自动得了一种美学魅力。它们离我们的时间距离相当于杜尚的艺术行动；它们也变成“现成品”，被我们美术馆世界复活的怀旧痕迹。我们也可以推论这个美学变形到材料制作。当它接近一个已经不是为了社会财富交换的窗口，它变成一个超现实物品，被美学控制，而在一种虚拟美术馆出现。所以也有技术环境的美术馆化用一个工业荒地形式，像“现成品”一样。无用的逻辑只能把当代艺术引导一个损耗偏爱，而这个本来也是无用的。通过损耗、损耗的图像、损耗的困扰，艺术就大声宣布它的无用。它说明它的无用价值，它的无交换价值，同事把自己卖的很贵。这里有一个误解。“无用”也是有价值。是一个副作用，因为它这样为了这个阴性本质而牺牲目标，所以艺术完全脱离了常轨进去一个无用的免费性。跟之前的理论关于“宣布自己的很差”的理论差不多，宣布无意义、无价值和普遍性，这些都变成一种双重美学借口。“反艺术”尽量逃避美学范围。但自从“现成品”跟普遍性合并了，这些都结束了。无意义、无具象、卑劣、异议的单纯也结束了。这些当代艺术希望当或回去的事情加强这个反艺术的强制美学特点。
艺术一直否定了自己。但它以前是通过过度性、演自己的消失。今天艺术是默认地否定自己——比这个还可怕，它否定自己的死亡。它不是现实杀手的象征代表，也不是它的消失的魔力操作者，而它反过来把自己沉浸于现实。这里的矛盾是，它越接近这个现象的混乱：这个作为艺术的“差”，越又人给它一种价值，就按照Canetti说，我们到了一个阶段没有好看难看的问题；我们无意识地过了这个过程，然后因为我们不能够回去到这个地步，我们也只能继续操作艺术的消灭。
最后，这个无用性的功能目标是什么？这个无用性从那个方面解放我们？像政治家一样，他们从权利责任解放我们，当代艺术作为不连贯的技巧，通过提供无意义表演给我们让我们从意义解放。这个也解释它的扩大：跟美学价值无关它通过它的无意义和虚空发展。就像一个没有可信性或代表性的政治家忍受的一样。所以艺术和艺术市场按照他们的衰落就繁荣：他们是文化的现代具体房子也是幻影。
那么这样的话，说当代艺术不值得是毫无意义，因为它是它自己的生存功能：它来说明我们的无用性和荒谬. 更准确地说，它让衰落变成一种生意，同时也让它变成一种表演。如果，像一些人说，艺术功能是让生活比艺术更有趣，那么我们可以把这个幻想忘记掉。我们感觉目前的大部分艺术参与一个威慑操作, 一个关于图像和想象力的悲痛作品，一个——几乎失败的——悲痛美学作品引导艺术世界的总的忧郁，而这个世界通过整修自己的历史和痕迹生存自己的死亡。
但艺术、美学都不是唯一的命定到这个不是超越目标而是超越他们结束的忧郁命运，
好文！ 欢迎继续blabla.....
非常好的文章
這個翻譯真爛！
欢迎见到另一个版本的翻译 渴望拜读参考 或原文
翻译的不是一般的差，而是太差了。
请看以下英文翻译（原文为法语）：
Contemporary Art: Art Contemporary with Itself
By Jean Baudrillard / Translated by Chris Turner
This essay was originally published as part of Jean Baudrillard's "Le Pacte de lucidité ou l'intelligence du Mal" (2004), translated into English in 2005 as "The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact".
The adventure of modern art is over. Contemporary art is contemporary only with itself. It no longer knows any transcendence either towards past or future; its only reality is that of its operation in real time and its confusion with that reality. Nothing now distinguishes it from the technical, promotional, media, digital operation. There is no transcendence, no divergence any more, nothing of another scene: merely a specular play with the contemporary world as it takes place. It is in this that contemporary art is worthless: between it and the world, there is a zero-sum equation. Quite apart from that shameful complicity in which creators and consumers commune wordlessly in the examination of strange, inexplicable objects that refer only to themselves and to the idea of art, the true conspiracy lies in this complicity that art forges with itself, its collusion with the real, through which it becomes complicit in that Integral Reality, of which it is now merely the image-feedback. There is no longer any differential of art. There is only the integral calculus of reality. Art is now merely an idea prostituted in its realization.
Modernity was the golden age of a deconstruction of reality into its simple elements, of a detailed analytics, first of impressionism, then of abstraction, experimentally open to all the aspects of perception, of sensibility, of the structure of the object and the dismemberment of forms. The paradox of abstraction is that, by "liberating" the object from the constraints of the figural to yield it up to the pure play of form, it shackled it to an idea of a hidden structure, of an objectivity more rigorous and radical than that of resemblance. It sought to set aside the mask of resemblance and of the figure in order to accede to the analytic truth of the object. Under the banner of abstraction, we moved paradoxically towards more reality, towards an unveiling of the "elementary structures" of objectality, that is to say, towards something more real than the real. Conversely, under the banner of a general aestheticization, art invaded the whole field of reality.
The end of this history saw the banality of art merge with the banality of the real world -- Duchamp's act, with its automatic transference of the object, being the inaugural (and ironic) gesture in this process. The transference of all reality into aesthetics, which has become one of the dimensions of generalized exchange... All this under the banner of a simultaneous liberation of art and the real world. This "liberation" has in fact consisted in indexing the two to each other -- a chiasmus lethal to both. The transference of art, become a useless function, into a reality that is now integral, since it has absorbed everything that denied, exceeded or transfigured it. The impossible exchange of this Integral Reality for anything else whatever. Given this, it can only exchange itself for itself or, in other words, repeat itself ad infinitum.
What could miraculously reassure us today about the essence of art? Art is quite simply what is at issue in the world of art, in that desperately self-obsessed artistic community. The "creative" act doubles up on itself and is now nothing more than a sign of its own operation -- the painter's true subject is no longer what he paints but the very fact that he paints. He paints the fact that he paints. At least in that way the idea of art remains intact.This is merely one of the sides of the conspiracy. The other side is that of the spectator who, for want of understanding anything whatever most of the time, consumes his own culture at one remove. He literally consumes the fact that he understands nothing and that there is no necessity in all this except the imperative of culture, of being a part of the integrated circuit of culture. But culture is itself merely an epiphenomenon of global circulation. The idea of art has become rarefied and minimal, leading ultimately to conceptual art, where it ends in the non-exhibition of non-works in non-galleries -- the apotheosis of art as a non-event. As a corollary, the consumer circulates in all this in order to experience his non-enjoyment of the works.
At the extreme point of a conceptual, minimalist logic, art ought quite simply to fade away. At that point, it would doubtless become what it is: a false problem, and every aesthetic theory would be a false solution. And yet it is the case that there is all the more need to speak about it because there is nothing to say. The movement of the democratization of art has paradoxically merely strengthened the privileged status of the idea of art, culminating in this banal tautology of "art is art", it being possible for everything to find its place in this circular definition. As Marshall McLuhan has it, "We have now become aware of the possibility of arranging the entire human environment as a work of art".
The revolutionary idea of contemporary art was that any object, any detail or fragment of the material world, could exert the same strange attraction and pose the same insoluble questions as were reserved in the past for a few rare aristocratic forms known as works of art. That is where true democracy lay: not in the accession of everyone to aesthetic enjoyment, but in the transaesthetic advent of a world in which every object would, without distinction, have its fifteen minutes of fame (particularly objects without distinction). All objects are equivalent, everything is a work of genius. With, as a corollary, the transformation of art and of the work itself into an object, without illusion or transcendence, a purely conceptual acting-out, generative of deconstructed objects which deconstruct us in their turn. No longer any face, any gaze, any human countenance or body in all this -- organs without bodies, flows, molecules, the fractal. The relation to the "artwork" is of the order of contamination, of contagion: you hook up to it, absorb or immerse yourself in it, exactly as in flows and networks. Metonymic sequence, chain reaction. No longer any real object in all this: in the ready-made it is no longer the object that's there, but the idea of the object, and we no longer find pleasure here in art, but in the idea of art. We are wholly in ideology. And, ultimately, the twofold curse of modern and contemporary art is summed up in the "ready-made": the curse of an immersion in the real and banality, and that of a conceptual absorption in the idea of art.
"... that absurd sculpture by Picasso, with its stalks and leaves of metal; neither wings, nor victory, just a testimony, a vestige -- the idea, nothing more, of a work of art. Very similar to the other ideas and vestiges that inspire our existence -- not apples, but the idea, the reconstruction by the pomologist of what apples used to be -- not ice-cream, but the idea, the memory of something delicious, made from substitutes, from starch, glucose and other chemicals -- not sex, but the idea or evocation of sex -- the same with love, belief, thought and the rest..."2
Art, in its form, signifies nothing. It is merely a sign pointing towards absence. But what becomes of this perspective of emptiness and absence in a contemporary universe that is already totally emptied of its meaning and reality? Art can now only align itself with the general insignificance and indifference. It no longer has any privileged status. It no longer has any other final destination than this fluid universe of communication, the networks and interaction. Transmitter and receiver merging in the same loop: all transmitters, all receivers. Each subject interacting with itself, doomed to express itself without any longer having time to listen to the other. The Net and the networks clearly increase this possibility of transmitting for oneself in a closed circuit, everyone going at it with their virtual performances and contributing to the general asphyxia.
This is why, where art is concerned, the most interesting thing would be to infiltrate the spongiform encephalon of the modern spectator. For this is where the mystery lies today: in the brain of the receiver, at the nerve centre of this servility before "works of art". What is the secret of it? In the complicity between the mortification "creative artists" inflict on objects and themselves, and the mortification consumers inflict on themselves and their mental faculties. Tolerance for the worst of things has clearly increased considerably as a function of this general state of complicity.
Interface and performance -- these are the two current leitmotifs. In performance, all the forms of expression merge -- the plastic arts, photography, video, installation, the interactive screen. This vertical and horizontal, aesthetic and commercial diversification is henceforth part of the work, the original core of which cannot be located. A (non-)event like The Matrix illustrates this perfectly: this is the very archetype of the global installation, of the total global fact: not just the film, which is, in a way, the alibi, but the spin-offs, the simultaneous projection at all points of the globe and the millions of spectators themselves who are inextricably part of it. We are all, from a global, interactive point of view, the actors in this global total fact.
Photography has the selfsame problem when we undertake to multi-mediatize it by adding to it all the resources of montage, collage, the digital and CGI, etc. This opening-up to the infinite, this deregulation, is, literally, the death of photography by its elevation to the stage of performance. In this universal mix, each register loses its specificity -- just as each individual loses his sovereignty in interaction and the networks -- just as the real and the image, art and reality lose their respective energy by ceasing to be differential poles.
Since the nineteenth century, it has been art's claim that it is useless. It has prided itself on this (which was not the case in classical art, where, in a world that was not yet either real or objective, the question of usefulness did not even arise). Extending this principle, it is enough to elevate any object to uselessness to turn it into a work of art. This is precisely what the "ready-made" does, when it simply withdraws an object from its function, without changing it in any way, and thereby turns it into a gallery piece. It is enough to turn the real itself into a useless function to make it an art object, prey to the devouring aesthetic of banality. Similarly, old objects, being obsolete and hence useless, automatically acquire an aesthetic aura. Their being distant from us in time is the equivalent of Duchamp's artistic act; they too become "ready-mades", nostalgic vestiges resuscitated in our museum universe. We might extrapolate this aesthetic transfiguration to the whole of material production. As soon as it reaches a threshold where it is no longer exchanged in terms of social wealth, it becomes something like a giant Surrealist object, in the grip of a devouring aesthetic, and everywhere takes its place in a kind of virtual museum. And so we have the museumification, like a "ready-made", of the whole technical environment in the form of industrial wasteland.
The logic of uselessness could not but lead contemporary art to a predilection for waste, which is itself useless by definition. Through waste, the figuration of waste, the obsession with waste, art fiercely proclaims its uselessness. It demonstrates its non-use-value, its non-exchange-value at the same time as selling itself very dear. There is a misconception here. Uselessness has no value in itself. It is a secondary symptom and, by sacrificing its aims to this negative quality, art goes completely off track, into a gratuitousness that is itself useless. It is the same scenario, more or less, as that of nullity, of the claim to non-meaning, insignificance and banality, which attests to a redoubled aesthetic pretension. Anti-art strives, in all its forms, to escape the aesthetic dimension. But since the "ready-made" has annexed banality itself, all that is finished. The innocence of non-meaning, of the non-figurative, of abjection and dissidence, is finished. All these things, which contemporary art would like to be, or return to, merely reinforce the inexorably aesthetic character of this anti-art.
Art has always denied itself. But once it did so through excess, thrilling to the play of its disappearance. Today it denies itself by default -- worse, it denies its own death. It immerses itself in reality, instead of being the agent of the symbolic murder of that same reality, instead of being the magical operator of its disappearance. And the paradox is that the closer it gets to this phenomenal confusion, this nullity as art, the greater credit and value it is accorded, to the extent that, to paraphrase Canetti, we have reached a point where nothing is beautiful or ugly any more; we passed that point without realizing it and, since we cannot get back to that blind spot, we can only persevere in the current destruction of art.
Lastly, what purpose does this useless function serve? From what, by its very uselessness, does it deliver us? Like politicians, who deliver us from the wearisome responsibility of power, contemporary art, by its incoherent artifice, delivers us from the ascendancy of meaning by providing us with the spectacle of non-sense. This explains its proliferation: independently of any aesthetic value, it is assured of prospering by dint of its very insignificance and emptiness. Just as the politician endures in the absence of any representativeness or credibility.
So art and the art market flourish precisely in proportion to their decay: they are the modern charnel-houses of culture and the simulacrum.
It is absurd, then, to say that contemporary art is worthless and that there's no point to it, since that is its vital function: to illustrate our uselessness and absurdity. Or, more accurately, to make that decay its stock in trade, while exorcizing it as spectacle.
If, as some have proposed, the function of art was to make life more interesting than art, then we have to give up that illusion. One gets the impression that a large part of current art participates in an enterprise of deterrence, a work of mourning for the image and the imaginary, a -- mostly failed -- work of aesthetic mourning that leads to a general melancholia of the artistic sphere, which seems to survive its own demise by recycling its history and its relics.
But neither art nor aesthetics is alone in being doomed to this melancholy destiny of living not beyond their means, but beyond their ends.
1 In English in the original.
2 This passage is cited from an unidentified work by Saul Bellow, and I have not been able to trace the original. As a result, I can only offer here a retranslation of the French.
Contemporary Art: Art Contemporary with Itself
By Jean Baudrillard / Translated by Chris Turner
This essay was originally published as part of Jean Baudrillard's "Le Pacte de lucidité ou l'intelligence du Mal" (2004), translated into English in 2005 as "The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact".
The adventure of modern art is over. Contemporary art is contemporary only with itself. It no longer knows any transcendence either towards past or future; its only reality is that of its operation in real time and its confusion with that reality. Nothing now distinguishes it from the technical, promotional, media, digital operation. There is no transcendence, no divergence any more, nothing of another scene: merely a specular play with the contemporary world as it takes place. It is in this that contemporary art is worthless: between it and the world, there is a zero-sum equation. Quite apart from that shameful complicity in which creators and consumers commune wordlessly in the examination of strange, inexplicable objects that refer only to themselves and to the idea of art, the true conspiracy lies in this complicity that art forges with itself, its collusion with the real, through which it becomes complicit in that Integral Reality, of which it is now merely the image-feedback. There is no longer any differential of art. There is only the integral calculus of reality. Art is now merely an idea prostituted in its realization.
Modernity was the golden age of a deconstruction of reality into its simple elements, of a detailed analytics, first of impressionism, then of abstraction, experimentally open to all the aspects of perception, of sensibility, of the structure of the object and the dismemberment of forms. The paradox of abstraction is that, by "liberating" the object from the constraints of the figural to yield it up to the pure play of form, it shackled it to an idea of a hidden structure, of an objectivity more rigorous and radical than that of resemblance. It sought to set aside the mask of resemblance and of the figure in order to accede to the analytic truth of the object. Under the banner of abstraction, we moved paradoxically towards more reality, towards an unveiling of the "elementary structures" of objectality, that is to say, towards something more real than the real. Conversely, under the banner of a general aestheticization, art invaded the whole field of reality.
The end of this history saw the banality of art merge with the banality of the real world -- Duchamp's act, with its automatic transference of the object, being the inaugural (and ironic) gesture in this process. The transference of all reality into aesthetics, which has become one of the dimensions of generalized exchange... All this under the banner of a simultaneous liberation of art and the real world. This "liberation" has in fact consisted in indexing the two to each other -- a chiasmus lethal to both. The transference of art, become a useless function, into a reality that is now integral, since it has absorbed everything that denied, exceeded or transfigured it. The impossible exchange of this Integral Reality for anything else whatever. Given this, it can only exchange itself for itself or, in other words, repeat itself ad infinitum.
What could miraculously reassure us today about the essence of art? Art is quite simply what is at issue in the world of art, in that desperately self-obsessed artistic community. The "creative" act doubles up on itself and is now nothing more than a sign of its own operation -- the painter's true subject is no longer what he paints but the very fact that he paints. He paints the fact that he paints. At least in that way the idea of art remains intact.This is merely one of the sides of the conspiracy. The other side is that of the spectator who, for want of understanding anything whatever most of the time, consumes his own culture at one remove. He literally consumes the fact that he understands nothing and that there is no necessity in all this except the imperative of culture, of being a part of the integrated circuit of culture. But culture is itself merely an epiphenomenon of global circulation. The idea of art has become rarefied and minimal, leading ultimately to conceptual art, where it ends in the non-exhibition of non-works in non-galleries -- the apotheosis of art as a non-event. As a corollary, the consumer circulates in all this in order to experience his non-enjoyment of the works.
At the extreme point of a conceptual, minimalist logic, art ought quite simply to fade away. At that point, it would doubtless become what it is: a false problem, and every aesthetic theory would be a false solution. And yet it is the case that there is all the more need to speak about it because there is nothing to say. The movement of the democratization of art has paradoxically merely strengthened the privileged status of the idea of art, culminating in this banal tautology of "art is art", it being possible for everything to find its place in this circular definition. As Marshall McLuhan has it, "We have now become aware of the possibility of arranging the entire human environment as a work of art".
The revolutionary idea of contemporary art was that any object, any detail or fragment of the material world, could exert the same strange attraction and pose the same insoluble questions as were reserved in the past for a few rare aristocratic forms known as works of art. That is where true democracy lay: not in the accession of everyone to aesthetic enjoyment, but in the transaesthetic advent of a world in which every object would, without distinction, have its fifteen minutes of fame (particularly objects without distinction). All objects are equivalent, everything is a work of genius. With, as a corollary, the transformation of art and of the work itself into an object, without illusion or transcendence, a purely conceptual acting-out, generative of deconstructed objects which deconstruct us in their turn. No longer any face, any gaze, any human countenance or body in all this -- organs without bodies, flows, molecules, the fractal. The relation to the "artwork" is of the order of contamination, of contagion: you hook up to it, absorb or immerse yourself in it, exactly as in flows and networks. Metonymic sequence, chain reaction. No longer any real object in all this: in the ready-made it is no longer the object that's there, but the idea of the object, and we no longer find pleasure here in art, but in the idea of art. We are wholly in ideology. And, ultimately, the twofold curse of modern and contemporary art is summed up in the "ready-made": the curse of an immersion in the real and banality, and that of a conceptual absorption in the idea of art.
"... that absurd sculpture by Picasso, with its stalks and leaves of metal; neither wings, nor victory, just a testimony, a vestige -- the idea, nothing more, of a work of art. Very similar to the other ideas and vestiges that inspire our existence -- not apples, but the idea, the reconstruction by the pomologist of what apples used to be -- not ice-cream, but the idea, the memory of something delicious, made from substitutes, from starch, glucose and other chemicals -- not sex, but the idea or evocation of sex -- the same with love, belief, thought and the rest..."2
Art, in its form, signifies nothing. It is merely a sign pointing towards absence. But what becomes of this perspective of emptiness and absence in a contemporary universe that is already totally emptied of its meaning and reality? Art can now only align itself with the general insignificance and indifference. It no longer has any privileged status. It no longer has any other final destination than this fluid universe of communication, the networks and interaction. Transmitter and receiver merging in the same loop: all transmitters, all receivers. Each subject interacting with itself, doomed to express itself without any longer having time to listen to the other. The Net and the networks clearly increase this possibility of transmitting for oneself in a closed circuit, everyone going at it with their virtual performances and contributing to the general asphyxia.
This is why, where art is concerned, the most interesting thing would be to infiltrate the spongiform encephalon of the modern spectator. For this is where the mystery lies today: in the brain of the receiver, at the nerve centre of this servility before "works of art". What is the secret of it? In the complicity between the mortification "creative artists" inflict on objects and themselves, and the mortification consumers inflict on themselves and their mental faculties. Tolerance for the worst of things has clearly increased considerably as a function of this general state of complicity.
Interface and performance -- these are the two current leitmotifs. In performance, all the forms of expression merge -- the plastic arts, photography, video, installation, the interactive screen. This vertical and horizontal, aesthetic and commercial diversification is henceforth part of the work, the original core of which cannot be located. A (non-)event like The Matrix illustrates this perfectly: this is the very archetype of the global installation, of the total global fact: not just the film, which is, in a way, the alibi, but the spin-offs, the simultaneous projection at all points of the globe and the millions of spectators themselves who are inextricably part of it. We are all, from a global, interactive point of view, the actors in this global total fact.
Photography has the selfsame problem when we undertake to multi-mediatize it by adding to it all the resources of montage, collage, the digital and CGI, etc. This opening-up to the infinite, this deregulation, is, literally, the death of photography by its elevation to the stage of performance. In this universal mix, each register loses its specificity -- just as each individual loses his sovereignty in interaction and the networks -- just as the real and the image, art and reality lose their respective energy by ceasing to be differential poles.
Since the nineteenth century, it has been art's claim that it is useless. It has prided itself on this (which was not the case in classical art, where, in a world that was not yet either real or objective, the question of usefulness did not even arise). Extending this principle, it is enough to elevate any object to uselessness to turn it into a work of art. This is precisely what the "ready-made" does, when it simply withdraws an object from its function, without changing it in any way, and thereby turns it into a gallery piece. It is enough to turn the real itself into a useless function to make it an art object, prey to the devouring aesthetic of banality. Similarly, old objects, being obsolete and hence useless, automatically acquire an aesthetic aura. Their being distant from us in time is the equivalent of Duchamp's artistic act; they too become "ready-mades", nostalgic vestiges resuscitated in our museum universe. We might extrapolate this aesthetic transfiguration to the whole of material production. As soon as it reaches a threshold where it is no longer exchanged in terms of social wealth, it becomes something like a giant Surrealist object, in the grip of a devouring aesthetic, and everywhere takes its place in a kind of virtual museum. And so we have the museumification, like a "ready-made", of the whole technical environment in the form of industrial wasteland.
The logic of uselessness could not but lead contemporary art to a predilection for waste, which is itself useless by definition. Through waste, the figuration of waste, the obsession with waste, art fiercely proclaims its uselessness. It demonstrates its non-use-value, its non-exchange-value at the same time as selling itself very dear. There is a misconception here. Uselessness has no value in itself. It is a secondary symptom and, by sacrificing its aims to this negative quality, art goes completely off track, into a gratuitousness that is itself useless. It is the same scenario, more or less, as that of nullity, of the claim to non-meaning, insignificance and banality, which attests to a redoubled aesthetic pretension. Anti-art strives, in all its forms, to escape the aesthetic dimension. But since the "ready-made" has annexed banality itself, all that is finished. The innocence of non-meaning, of the non-figurative, of abjection and dissidence, is finished. All these things, which contemporary art would like to be, or return to, merely reinforce the inexorably aesthetic character of this anti-art.
Art has always denied itself. But once it did so through excess, thrilling to the play of its disappearance. Today it denies itself by default -- worse, it denies its own death. It immerses itself in reality, instead of being the agent of the symbolic murder of that same reality, instead of being the magical operator of its disappearance. And the paradox is that the closer it gets to this phenomenal confusion, this nullity as art, the greater credit and value it is accorded, to the extent that, to paraphrase Canetti, we have reached a point where nothing is beautiful or ugly any more; we passed that point without realizing it and, since we cannot get back to that blind spot, we can only persevere in the current destruction of art.
Lastly, what purpose does this useless function serve? From what, by its very uselessness, does it deliver us? Like politicians, who deliver us from the wearisome responsibility of power, contemporary art, by its incoherent artifice, delivers us from the ascendancy of meaning by providing us with the spectacle of non-sense. This explains its proliferation: independently of any aesthetic value, it is assured of prospering by dint of its very insignificance and emptiness. Just as the politician endures in the absence of any representativeness or credibility.
So art and the art market flourish precisely in proportion to their decay: they are the modern charnel-houses of culture and the simulacrum.
It is absurd, then, to say that contemporary art is worthless and that there's no point to it, since that is its vital function: to illustrate our uselessness and absurdity. Or, more accurately, to make that decay its stock in trade, while exorcizing it as spectacle.
If, as some have proposed, the function of art was to make life more interesting than art, then we have to give up that illusion. One gets the impression that a large part of current art participates in an enterprise of deterrence, a work of mourning for the image and the imaginary, a -- mostly failed -- work of aesthetic mourning that leads to a general melancholia of the artistic sphere, which seems to survive its own demise by recycling its history and its relics.
But neither art nor aesthetics is alone in being doomed to this melancholy destiny of living not beyond their means, but beyond their ends.
1 In English in the original.
2 This passage is cited from an unidentified work by Saul Bellow, and I have not been able to trace the original. As a result, I can only offer here a retranslation of the French.
虽然翻译的一般但是理解意思还是可以的。文章确实不错。
很好
当然是篇很好的翻译！
有些地方是有些模糊 哈哈 但更多的地方能提神 所以感谢
