A Manual for the 21st Century Gatekeeper A Response by Michael Connor, to the Art of With

I would like provide an external reference for the purposes of finding a critical counterpoint, by comparing Michael Connor’s essay with another.
I have been reading the gatekeeper essay and other texts whilst thinking these last three days about how to contribute to the discussion around it. Then I wondered if the way in which it is written so slickly is partly the reason why I am struggling, and why there is no discussion. So I am resolved now that my contribution will be slapped on as a tactical way of opening the debate up by providing a needed contrast, like turds on whitewash, or maybe wasabi on rice

The following pieces of text are taken from three essays by the same author, a New York based artist and writer by the name of Gregory Scholette, and who through these essays has developed a concept, or way of looking at the art matrix that I think is extremely relevant to the art of with.
The concept is termed Dark matter, and it is concerned with the unacknowledged majority populous of the art industry, constituted by people who operate on the outskirts and including those who also work within the art industry.
It seems to me that if the Cornerhouse is looking at lowering its barriers for participation in its programmes, in delivering shows, outsourcing for ideas in a ‘With’ way – then it needs to be really deliberate in the way it identifies and tries to engage with these target audiences/artists/curators, or put another way – those who reside in the dark matter of the art world.
Especially as this question of who is the Cornerhouse looking to, as a ‘with’ audience? is currently not part of the open Art Of With dialogue, perhaps Gregory Scholette’s writing can help to illuminate the darkness in this decision making.

all texts can be found on http://www.gregorysholette.com/writings/writing_index.html

taken from Arte y revolucion in the age of enterprise culture

The term dark matter is borrowed from astrophysics where it stands for an unknown type of mass and energy allegedly making up ninety percent of the universe, but which has never directly been observed. According to the theory of the Big Bang this unidentified gravitational force acts as an essential counter-weight to the infinite inflation of time and space. As I have sought to show elsewhere creative dark matter functions in much the same way by invisibly maintaining the cohesion of the art industry. However, this is not an argument for the existence of some “authentic” aesthetic suppressed by the commercial art world. Instead, the shadow zone of dark matter is itself a heterogeneous assortment of practices and forms, some progressive, others reactionary, many of which collide and influence mainstream art while remaining structurally marginalized by its institutions. This unacknowledged art world productivity includes the army of professionally trained artists who no longer show up on the radar screens of contemporary art, and yet who nonetheless continue to support the industry through museum memberships, magazine subscriptions, educational programs, administrative positions, and assorted fabrication and installation trades. It also includes the non-professional artists whose amateur status provides a sort of juridical threshold for what is and what is not worthy of aesthetic evaluation. And of course this shadow zone is headquarters to the precarious posses of politicized cultural workers who have exiled themselves, partially or wholly, within the folds of dark matter for primarily ideological reasons.

Separately the inhabitants of this shadow space have little in common with each other. But looked at structurally, as the art world’s unseen gravitational pivot, they form a massive informal economy upon which mainstream cultural institutions depend. To put a sharper point on this assertion, just imagine for a moment if art fabricators went on strike, or demanded an exhibition of their own work as payment for services? What if volunteers refused to serve as docents or help with museum membership drives? Or if art magazines were boycotted until they made their glossy covers reflect explicit opposition to the Iraq war? Imagine what would happen to the local art economy if regional amateur artists insisted on equal representation at The Tate, or the Reina Sophia, or the MoMA, and refused to attend exhibitions, or art classes, or worse yet, agreed to stop purchasing art supplies until their demands were met?

++++what if the art of with, was actually, open to suggestions like these from its audience?
(who this audience is for the Cornerhouse -judging by the art of with so far- seems to consist mainly of creative consultants, business men, people who work in museums and galleries and a few artists-I think this now needs addressing)
Is it possible for an art of with where an engagement with an audience wasn’t looked at in terms of denominations of bank notes, but real emphasis was placed on the exchange of goods and services in a non monetary system, perhaps to put this better –it could be like a gift economy.

Perhaps people would be interested in giving over their time and effort in voluntary labour, if the Cornerhouse committed some of its space to showing them- a good example here could be that maybe people would be happy to act as consultants to lend credibility to an outreach program on politically divided communities, if they got to publish a piece of poetry on the film listing board outside of cinema 1..?++++

Creative dark matter therefore is neither fully contiguous with, nor symmetrical to, the products, institutions, or discourse of high art. And yet it is intimately connected with them. More significantly however, as a zone of social production that is motivated by such things as political opinion or individual pleasure and which is not dictated to by marketplace needs, dark matter has the makings of what Oscar Negt and Alexander Kluge describe as a counter-public sphere. Such a realm is organized around the counter-productivity of working class fantasy and imagination.
“Throughout history, living labour has, along with the surplus value extracted from it, carried on its own production—within fantasy…by virtue of its mode of production, fantasy constitutes an unconscious practical critique of alienation.”

If therefore one were to somehow illuminate this dark, counter-public sphere they would find no grand history of revolutionary accomplishments, but rather transitory moments of resistance, local insurrections, and a tangle of informal social networks where the free-exchange of goods and services count more than the accumulation of professional status.

+++++there is already a precedent for artists, curators/gatekeepers and galleries to take from dark matter, if the work or program becomes more about the gatekeeper taking creative risks, rather than those who are providing content, then all this will serve is to blow up the status of the gatekeeper, by being seen to support those from dark matter.+++++