KIRAC: Objection to the Mondriaan Fund Decision

Date: 14 November 2016

Application number: 102427519

Subject: Project Investment, Keeping It Real Art Critics 2017

Dear Mr Vrieler,

I hereby lodge an objection to the committee's negative recommendation concerning the award of a project grant to KIRAC 2017.

In its assessment, the committee states that it recognises the necessity and artistic relevance of an initiative such as KIRAC, but takes a negative view of the proposed plan. It further states that the videos — the letter does not make clear whether this refers to the videos already completed or those still to be made — are insufficiently developed in both form and visual terms.

First of all, recognising the necessity and artistic relevance of an initiative such as KIRAC contradicts any possible negative recommendation. Given that no “initiative such as KIRAC” exists apart from KIRAC itself, the committee is therefore judging negatively something it considers necessary, because KIRAC itself apparently fails to meet KIRAC's necessity and artistic relevance. Its judgment is: KIRAC is necessary, but it must be different from KIRAC. This is a contradiction in terms. It also undermines the relevance of the Mondriaan Fund, since the committee is advising the Fund not to subsidise a necessary and artistically relevant initiative.

The committee then judges the videos to be insufficiently developed in both form and visual terms. My question is: how, then, was the committee able to recognise their necessity and artistic relevance? Perhaps the committee means that the work plan does not describe exactly what the future episodes will look like. In that case, it has observed correctly. It is precisely this condition — the absence of a predetermined, fixed plan — to which the KIRAC project owes its necessity and artistic relevance. Only in this way, by responding spontaneously and openly to subjects, exhibitions and situations, can KIRAC offer relevant criticism. KIRAC's purpose, namely to practise criticism in a cheerful and open way, immediately cancels itself out the moment its conclusion and message are fixed in advance. That is precisely the kind of closed-off discourse to which KIRAC responds. KIRAC's content, form and visual quality cannot be separated in this respect: the camerawork, the talking heads, the narrative structure and the spontaneity of the criticism are inherent in one another.

Finally, the committee states that it is insufficiently convinced by my “substantive reflection on the function and position of KIRAC within the current discourse of contemporary visual art”. Once again, the committee contradicts itself. Having said that KIRAC has necessity and artistic relevance, and thus fills a gap in artistic discourse, it claims that I do not reflect on this function and position. In other words, it claims that I do not reflect on a necessary function that I myself created, and that could not have come into being at all without my reflection on it. KIRAC is precisely the product of reflection on my position as an artist within the current discourse. I felt a lack and a need for something that did not yet have a form, and that became KIRAC.

I would add that I have reflected not only on myself, but also on self-reflection as a requirement. What is a self-critical attitude? Is it openly doubting yourself, belittling yourself, so as to insure yourself completely against every form of external criticism? This definition of self-criticism makes all criticism redundant and confines every individual artist to their own little subjective island. By taking a firm stand for my own views through KIRAC, I invite other people to challenge me, thereby setting a substantive discussion in motion. Just as I cannot proclaim absolute truth, I cannot truly criticise myself: that would imply a higher, absolute insight that I do not possess. It is therefore up to others to criticise me substantively when they feel the need to do so. Only in this way can something approximating a search for truth arise. My approach to practising art criticism and philosophy is therefore perspectival, much closer to Nietzsche than, for example, Kant, Hegel or Marx. My approach does indeed have historical precedents and cannot simply be dismissed as “an inadequate form of self-criticism”. I addressed this in the explanatory statement accompanying my application; apparently it escaped the committee's attention.

With this letter, I hope to have demonstrated that my plan not only fits perfectly with the necessity of KIRAC that you have identified, but is intrinsically bound up with it. If you consider KIRAC relevant and necessary, then you also recognise that the plan as such is equally necessary.

Yours sincerely,

Stefan Ruitenbeek