Essay: Art and Social Risk

 There's an increasingly troubling political weaponization of art shows. Numerous mainstream art media channels increasingly normalize taking advantage of the art ecosystem as an exclusive and private political echo chamber and sandbox for an intolerant cohort of "collaborators".

The opportunity for true terrorism to be staged in the subterfuge of a Contemporary Art show is growing and may be breaching a dangerous critical mass.

The concern falls into a number of categories;

• The use of art shows by political cohorts to communicate, co-ordinate, or orchestrate illegal or terrorist activity 

• The use of art shows by political cohorts to smuggle or otherwise exchange weaponry or other materials to disrupt social stability 

• The use of art shows as a means to trigger or otherwise alter the behavior of a patron that results in a spontaneous reckless act of aggression or trauma

 The show and artist who inspired these observations is Tania El Koury who talked about her work in a Brooklyn Rail "New Social Environment" zoom call event.  

There is nothing about Koury's art to indicate anything but sincere aesthetic considerations but the implementation of her installations is worth examining in the context of this essay. 

This piece, Cultural Exchange Rate, is of particular interest.  It consists of locked Cabinet spaces that are opened by patrons with a key that's distributed by whoever is responsible for sitting the show on any given day. Khoury's work deconstructs some personally archival material that is distributed piecemeal among these cabinets. 

The patrons pictured have a relatively autonomous and personal experience but, obviously, there is no transparency as to the contents of any of these containers.

Given the global aspects of shows such as these shows - international special interest groups promoting their own agendas - the potential for ethnic and geopolitical intrigue is certainly a consideration worth discussing. In a violent world, Contemporary Art shows that feature coded political agendas or provide hidden opportunities for the exchange of contraband, or can co-ordinate private, exclusive access to designated spaces is problematic.  The list of abusive examples is much longer than my shortlisted items.

The artistic ecosystem needs to re-calibrate its attention to artistic concerns and reject the normalization of art as politics as religion in a world so polarized as to promote mutual distrust and harm.