Editorial / Linda Klösel / Version 3

Political art is omnipresent today. In recent years, it has gained increasing international significance, fueled in large part by global events. The current crises are politicizing artists around the world to an ever-greater extent. It’s not only within protected, state-subsidized spaces such as museums, theaters, and art associations—or in major exhibitions and biennials sponsored by global players—that political themes are being explored. Artists are also developing various strategies outside the art business to intervene in political processes. But what is political art anyway, and what is the relationship between art and politics? In libertarian societies, critical art has long become a status symbol of the powerful and wealthy—a way to showcase the sovereignty and enlightenment of those who surround themselves with it. But what role does resistant art play in authoritarian societies?

In VERSION No. 3, we present a number of strategies and organizational structures that show how political art cannot be confined to uniform categories. Its approaches are as diverse as its topics: committed intervention, activism, analytical critique, grassroots solidarity, tenacious solo efforts, or sensitive aesthetics. French philosopher Jacques Rancière describes the significance of political art as a tension between two “forms of resistance.” It is, he says, the “resistance of the stone (the retreat from life into aesthetics) and the emancipatory resistance (art’s intervention into the political).” He insists: “In order for the resistance of art not to vanish into its opposite, it must remain the unresolved tension between these two resistances.”

In this issue, we speak with Selma Ouissi, who, together with her brother Sofiane Ouissi, has drawn attention not only through their dance performances but also through their political and social projects in Tunis. We talk to members of the Gorki Theater ensemble in Berlin about “post-migrant” theater—a form that deliberately aligns itself with a changing modern society and consciously declares itself political as a publicly funded institution. With Stop and Go – Nodes of Transformation and Transition, we introduce a research project by Michael Hieslmayr and Michael Zinganel examining the nodes of transnational mobility and migration along the most important trans-European transport corridors, the so-called Balkan route. Cana Bilir-Meier and Belit Sağ discuss the conditions of documentary filmmaking, political activism, the importance of archives, appropriation, and the power of images. Oliver Ressler contributes to this issue with his piece The Economy is Wounded: Let It Die! Soma Ahmad presents emancipatory women’s movements in the Middle East and North Africa—an important contribution through which we aim to spotlight the committed activism of Muslim women. Friederike Mayröcker gifts us with a text written especially for this issue. Under the title Aufnahme, Hans Groiss and Elisabeth Zimmermann introduce Kunstradio – Radiokunst, and Ana Hoffner speaks with Yasmina Haddad and Andrea Lumplecker about their project school.

Alongside the magazine, we’re also releasing a new DVD edition, featuring contributions by Marie-Thérèse Escribano, Manfred Grübl, Andreas Kurz, Philipp Quehenberger, and Manfred Wakolbinger.