This work is an immense, dematerialised and
highly formal process piece which has no site, no boundaries
and no defined end. Intended to act as a permanent work sited
within the social architecture of the Kunstverein and its staff,
the piece involves a training course in negotiation skills for
the Kunstverein staff, with the piece specified as 'existing'
at any time when these skills are used during interactions with
others.
Negotiation has been described as the attempt to influence one
or more people through an exchange of ideas or elements of material
value. Most people are constantly involved in processes of negotiation
to one degree or another. Examples might include drawing up
contracts, making mutual decisions, resolving differences or
even in deciding together where to have lunch. Learning negotiation
skills is said to mean that one can recognise situations for
a potential negotiation, meaning that improved outcomes can
be envisaged on a mutually beneficial, or ‘win-win’
basis.
The piece was initiated with a training course in negotiation
skills, selected by myself and undergone by the Kunstverein
curatorial team over the course of a day. (Completely by coincidence
in terms of the work's title, the training company was called
'Win!' and the trainer's name was Gudrun Windisch.) I intended
that, as with many of my other works, the work displaces a process
more often seen in business or in workplaces in general, into
a cultural dimension as a form of ‘readymade’ or
found process. With this piece the readymade has become incorporated
into the lives and relationships of four people, and occurs
in a space of interpersonal relationships, attitudes, beliefs
and memories.
The work is designed to be of practical use, balancing it somewhere
between the imaginary and the real. I selected negotiation skills
as something useful at an early stage in the team’s period
at the Kunstverein. The staff specified that they would like
the training to centre on scenarios specific to dealing with
artists, potential sponsors, local officials and notable people,
the media, the Kuntsverein board, and also their own team. This
work allows these relationships to be started or built upon
in a way in which they are altered but also improved (in a mutual
sense). The use-value of the course means that the participants
will engage with it fully, not as a favour to the artist in
order to construct the work, but in the belief that it would
be of genuine benefit in their own professional lives. With
this quasi-real identity, the work will take on an uncanny quality,
allowing the work to reside in the imagination of the viewer
as something which has the potential to transform the institution.
The work makes indirect reference to the history of Munich as
home to the Nazi regime, and to the Kunstverein as one of the
exhibition sites for the ‘Degenerate Art’ show of
1937. The work, as a generator of conflict resolutions, places
the Kunstverein in opposition to this legacy without making
that position didactic. As such this position is a kinetic one,
suggesting potential, forward movement and growth. The work
seems balanced between art and life, itself negotiating that
position and site on an ongoing basis.
The work’s form and notions of its ‘site’
are a key element of its interest as a work and extend its reach
far beyond the show and venue. Although it is a site-specific
gesture in that it has been chosen for this specific location
and team, both its site and form can be seen as transient, fluid
and somewhat viral – perhaps better understood in terms
of having ‘zones of intensity,’ in a Deleuzian sense.
I intend that the work is manifested – or becomes perceptible
- not only within the actions, attitudes and effects of the
Kunstverein team (and probably most intensely in their interactions
with each other) but also within the thoughts and memories of
those that interact with them. It exists especially in the minds
of those that know about the work, affecting their perceptions
of the institution and the team on an ongoing basis. Indeed,
like some of the artist’s previous works (the call centre
piece 'Nothing Ventured', for example), this piece is defined
by having no end in time since it is likely to affect others
in somewhat of a chain of reciprocal influence and effects.
Thus it extends beyond the Kunstverein and the team’s
three year period there, potentially residing in their future
roles and interactions on an ongoing basis. It could also be
seen as potentially leaving traces of itself within the other
works and shows that occur at the Kunstverein (for example,
within Christine Borland's show, which involved the recreation
of an earlier piece, for which the help of the local police
force had to be gained), and their realisations in other galleries
and shows, since the negotiation techniques may be used by the
curators within their whole working processes.
‘Win-win’ makes reference to numerous existing works,
not least many key conceptual works such Dan Graham’s
‘March 31, 1966,’ a list of distances between his
retina and the edges of the known universe. In a passing reference,
the work could be seen in the light of Gilbert and George’s
‘Living Sculptures,’ whilst the piece more interestingly
references Joseph Beuys’ notion of ‘social sculpture’
in its formal use of spoken words and its engagement with the
social field outside the gallery. Its utopianism is not so directly
Beuysian, however – this, above all, is a work of potential,
allowing the Kunstverein team to use these new skills as they
wish.
