Talk

Open Forum: Jan Verwoert - Fake Fate

Time: Monday, November 5 at 19.00. Student beer and free soup from 18.00. Khartoum is open 17:00-02:00.
Place: Khartoum Contemporary Art Center, Bernt Akers Gate 17.

Fake Fate

How to fight the fatal attraction of Turbofeudalism
and beat the Empire of the Tacky to the punch?

Politics get existential when the question is raised: Who are we to live and die together? The Left says: "We are rational beings so, yes, we can … make life better for everyone, if we try. Progress is possible." The Right responds: "Why become better? Are we not good enough, as we are? We are family, one people, fatefully united by our past, loyal to our royals, the tycoons and oligarchs, home-grown Emperors ofTurbofeudalism!" It's weird: Even though they act like gentry, mafia was never more than a second-hand upper-crust. Historically speaking, they acted as surrogates for a faded aristocracy. Everybody knows and sees: Oligarch bling is tacky, trashy, camp. Mar-a-Lago is unreal. Turbofeudalism is fake, so why would we let upstart Emperors seal out fate? Because we relate. Discussing Trump is like listening to Mariah Carey over Christmas: effectively inevitable.

If therefore we should inescapably be subjected to the Empire of the Tacky's new rule, what does this fate hold in store? National isolation, cultural shrinkage, endogamic meltdown preceding nuclear war? Indeed Thanatos is a conservative drive. But what would Mariah really say? Could we imagine a Carey-Xmas special directed by Brecht or Fassbinder, Pasolini or Sarah Silverman? Dramatic inauthenticity, after all, is what we love weddings and funerals for. Perhaps this is because there will always be something comically tragic and fatefully camp about social ceremonies surrounding sex and death. Can the Left camp it up and be down with the absurdity of existence? Not in the conservative key of fatal closure, but in the style of an existential openness of a full-fledged dedication to a future we do not yet know?

Jan Frederik Verwoert, professor of art and theory, teaches at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, the Piet Zwart Institute Rotterdam, and the de Appel curatorial programme, Amsterdam. Jan Verwoert is a critic and writer on contemporary art and cultural theory. He is a contributing editor at frieze magazine and his writing has appeared in various journals, anthologies and monographs.

Open Forum is a student run initiative from the Academy of Fine Art in Oslo that runs at Khartoum Contemporary Art Center (KCAC) every other Monday night. Open Forum seeks to create a meaningful exchange of ideas and a dynamic space for dialogue and debate between art students, artists and others. The talks are structured around different topics, from those closer to artistic and curatorial practices to other of social and political relevance.