Institutional Critique
This pertains to a certain type of artistic activity that developed in an art context between the middle of 1960s and early 1970, while responding to the rigid frameworks and traditions common in the art world. Artists who practice Critique of Institutions try to analyze and confront the aforementioned customs, their subtexts together with their power relations in regard to particular art outposts (for instance, museums, galleries, and other art-centered media sim.) so as to challenge the status of master and subordinate or hegemonic institutions subservient to the art system. Important people associated with this institution critique are Hans Haacke who often used to Clinical Sociology approach to uncover the hidden socio-cultural explanations of the actions that govern political and economic dominations in cultural systems, and Martha Rosler who problematized the role of the optical discourse of Museums as a means of control and construction and manipulation of social memory and history. Among other participants, those placed the accent on the powerful impact institutional policies exert of on the processes of creation, presentation and perception of the art works. The fundamental purpose of institutional critique, in the effectiveness of which rests in forms of action, counter-acts the dominant tendency, and instead of theorizing about art seeks to put emphasis on the practice, to look for the hand that produces the piece of art and uses it instead of the constitution. This Critique is directed towards questioning the socially conditioned relations of ideologies that dominate the art exhibition and reception as a system of cultural and consumer. Instead, these artists put to top the balance of power relations with the artistic establishment- the actors of the market and institutions.
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