Robert Storr

We are living in an era that is slowly beginning to celebrate anything which is polycentric and/or heterogeneous in its nature or claims. This celebration of polycentricism is fairly recent, it coincides with the flowering and acceptance of the world as a multicultural society, and is often positioned in theory as a strategic resistance against a unipolar world. It is this pedestal of resistance that has made polycentricism intellectually one of the most fashionable positions to take.

In the realm of high art, the effects of an increasingly polycentric world has lead to the mutliforation of ‘centres’, and a blurring of geographical boundaries, specially in terms of art production, exhibition and patronage. This phenomenon coincides with the de-centralisation of financial capital and in many ways is collaborative to the process. Sometimes, it is important to remember that polycentricism (in culture) is not just a simple utopic discourse that enables artists and art works to travel widely and invite multicultural viewership. Polycentricism in the realm of culture often takes up a centalising role by enveloping cultural production in the ambit of a particular kind of centralised late capitalist economy.

When the School of Art and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and the Biennale Society organised a talk, ’First Venice, then...Biennials in a polycentric art world’, by Robert Storr, Director 2007 Venice Biennale, and former senior curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, there was no space to wonder about the agenda behind show. Robert Storr’s talk has in a certain way made visible the campaign for Delhi Biennale; or as the mood during the question-answer session reflected the start of the Delhi Biennale. However, what raises questions is the need for an argument around polycentricism to legitimise the Biennale campaign. The manner in which Storr put forward his argument in favour of polycentricism carried so much baggage of the First World neo-liberal understanding of multiculturalism that one wonders how is it relevant to an audience in a Third World country or even to the Biennale Society, which is seeking to use the Biennale to take part in the discourse on multiculturalism. 

Polycentricism

This emerges as a contradiction more so because of the oxymoronic manner in which Storr put forward his argument for biennials in a polycentric art world. Initiating his two-part arument, Storr began by articulating a defense of the ‘institution’ in the context of patronising and show-casing art, and then moved on to trying to establish the ‘Biennale’ as a major ‘institution’ with a certain mandate to polycentralise the art world.

On the face of it, Storr’s seemed like a perfect argument, arguing for (or assuming) a neo-liberal role of institutions, and how through such liberalism (great) artistic exchange can take place. In that context, Storr’s talk was like a re-visitation of modernist thought to the extent that he glossed over ideological ground realities and elements of cultural location along with the location of power. It is not that Storr does not mention the takeover of institutions by (what he called) conservative forces but surprisingly he gives us an utopist “all is well” story that ‘intrinsically’ institutions are good. I thought we had left behind the idea of ‘intrinsic’ goodness some 10 years back.

It is Storr’s theoretical conservatism that leads to the oxymoronic quality of his talk. Polycentricism is theoretically a reaction against institutional monopolisation of power and culture, and this comes from our experiential realisations that ‘intrinsic’ goodness is a myth that powerful institutions use to maintain their hegemonic value, hiding power location and cultural biases behind it. In fact, the manner in which Storr spoke about MOMA’s founding director, Alfred H Barr makes clear the locational biases that he refuses to acknowledge. Painting Barr as a great multiculturalist, Storr argues that Barr’s curatorial taste did not have any class, regional, gender or sexuality bias. But, it is strange to see someone still pulling off such an argument in today’s age of theoretical anxiety, especially after so much has been written about the biases that informed the works of Barr and other such liberal modernists. In fact Storr might claim a neo-liberal position for himself, but throughout the talk one got a clear hint that he was trying to legitimise his position by tracing a lineage from Barr, one of conservative liberalism.

It is this masking of conservative thought in the guise of liberalism that is dangerous and needs careful attention. So when Storr goes on to give us a brief history of Biennale’s and argues for it as be a platform for multiculturalism, one cannot help but be sceptical. But Storr is one step ahead of us, he does not waste time and warns us that it is futile to criticise institutions and instead one must engage with them. That statement has a rhetorical value that has the power to sway many, while diverting one’s attention from certain important questions.

What about the possibilities of exploring alternative non-institutional modes? Is there any space that allows one to practice art, have a free flow of culture and not operate under macro institutional modes and generate macro rhetorics? Art in a polycentric should be able to address such possibilities, otherwise, the stress on poly become minimal and centric shines out in bold.