Batycka The Subversion of the Spectacle: Derives a la Biennale di Venezia 1 The Subversion of the Spectacle: Derives a la Biennale di Venezia Dorian Batycka Abstract: The Venice Biennale is the oldest and longest running exhibition of contemporary art in the world. Begun in 1895, the Venice Biennale is centered on exhibitions contained within national pavilions, which in 2011 represented a record number 89 national participants. This study attempts to understand the emergence of the Venice Biennale within several unique social, political, scientific, philosophical and economic developments, dating to what is generally referred to as The Age of Enlightenment and the Italian Unification Movement. In addition, this study also attempts to contextualize the proliferation of the Venice Biennale within several more recent developments in social, political and economic history, including both World Wars, the “Idea of Europe”, the Cold War and Globalization. This study concludes with a critique of the underlying exhibitionary policy of the Venice Biennale, largely informed by more recent developments in curatorial and aesthetic theory. Key Words: Venice Biennale, Enlightenment, Risorgimento, Contemporary Art, Politics, Aesthetics, National Identity, Post-Fordism, Cultural Production
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The Subversion of the Spectacle: Derives a la Biennale di Venezia
The Venice Biennale is the oldest and longest running exhibition of contemporary art in the world. Begun in 1895, the Venice Biennale is centered on exhibitions contained within national pavilions, which in 2011 represented a record number 89 national participants. This study attempts to understand the emergence of the Venice Biennale within several unique social, political, scientific, philosophical and economic developments, dating to what is generally referred to as The Age of Enlightenment and the Italian Unification Movement. In addition, this study also attempts to contextualize the proliferation of the Venice Biennale within several more recent developments in social, political and economic history, includingboth World Wars, the “Idea of Europe”, the Cold War and Globalization. This study concludes with a critique of the underlying exhibitionary policy of the Venice Biennale, largely informed by more recent developments in curatorial and aesthetic theory.
Key Words: Venice Biennale, Enlightenment, Risorgimento, Contemporary Art, Politics, Aesthetics, National Identity, Post-Fordism, Cultural Production
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Batycka The Subversion of the Spectacle: Derives a la Biennale di Venezia
1
The Subversion of the Spectacle: Derives a la Biennale di Venezia
Dorian Batycka
Abstract: The Venice Biennale is the oldest and longest running exhibition of contemporary art in the world. Begun in 1895, the Venice Biennale is centered on exhibitions contained within national pavilions, which in 2011 represented a record number 89 national participants. This study attempts to understand the emergence of the Venice Biennale within several unique social, political, scientific, philosophical and economic developments, dating to what is generally referred to as The Age of Enlightenment and the Italian Unification Movement. In addition, this study also attempts to contextualize the proliferation of the Venice Biennale within several more recent developments in social, political and economic history, including both World Wars, the “Idea of Europe”, the Cold War and Globalization. This study concludes with a critique of the underlying exhibitionary policy of the Venice Biennale, largely informed by more recent developments in curatorial and aesthetic theory. Key Words: Venice Biennale, Enlightenment, Risorgimento, Contemporary Art, Politics, Aesthetics, National Identity, Post-Fordism, Cultural Production
Batycka The Subversion of the Spectacle: Derives a la Biennale di Venezia
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What is critical consciousness at bottom if not an unstoppable predilection for alternatives?
Edward Said
The 54th International Biennale of visual art in Venice, ILLUMInations,
directed by Bice Curiger, opened to the public on Saturday, June 4th, 2011. As
the oldest and longest running exhibition of contemporary art in the world, begun
in 1895, the Venice Biennale is centered within official and satellite exhibitions
contained within national pavilions that in 2011 represented a record number 89
national participants (there were 77 in 2009).1 The title of the 54th edition of the
Venice Biennale, ILLUMInations, contained a not-so subliminal reference to the
concepts of light and nation, a juxtaposition of concepts dating back to the
Enlightenment. According to Venice Biennale chair Paolo Baratta, “[t]he
countries’ pavilions are a very important characteristic of the Venice Biennale, it
is an old formula envisaging the presence of states and yet more than ever lively
and vital.”2 Channeling these lines of flight, the purpose of this analysis will be to
critically analyze the history and politics of the Venice Biennale right up to the
present day. In so doing, this analysis will attempt to understand the genealogy
and intellectual history of the Enlightenment. This includes an analysis of several
unique social, political, philosophical and scientific ‘developments’, dating back to
1Original title Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers, English: Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts. 2Denis Diderot as quoted in Lynn Hunt, R. Po-chia Hsia, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein, and Bonnie G. Smith, The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures: A Concise History: Volume II: Since 1340, Second Edition (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007), 611.
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generally described as the Anciens. The Philosophes mediated their interest in
ancient politics through the lens of Early Modern humanism, whereas the
Anciens proffered a more or less Classical interpretation. Eldenstein posits that
the “Philosophes knowledge of ancient politics [was] mediated by early modern-
humanism” as they were generally unwilling “to consider political representation
as a viable solution for large republics, which they tended to view as a
contradiction in terms.”1 This can be seen as an early problematization of political
identity and representation more generally, manifest in art and culture through
large scale exhibitionary projects including the early Paris Salon and perhaps
most explicitly the Universal Expositions, both of which came to function as a
way to normalize large scale republican projects through spectacle, industry and
desire; predicated and effectively conditioned by the concept of creating
singularities of national identities through distinct hierarchies of political, aesthetic
and industrial representation.
In The Spirit of the Laws written by Baron de Montesquieu in 1748,
Montesquieu advocated for constitutionalism, the separation of powers, the
preservation of civil liberties and the rule of law, building on a number of works
including John Locke’s Second Treatsie of Government. In fact, ideas separating
the state and finance were nothing new, echoed also by Denis Diderot, editor of
the Encyclopédie, who proclaimed in unison, “if exclusive privileges were not
granted and if the financial system would not tend to concentrate wealth, there
1DanEldenstein,“TheEnlightenment:AGenealogy”2010.
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would be few great fortunes and no quick wealth. When the means of growing
rich is divided between a greater number of citizens, wealth will also be more
evenly distributed.”1 Swiss-born Jean Jacques Rousseau conceded to these
sentiments as well, suggesting that the original deeply flawed “social contract” (a
la Thomas Hobbes, led to the modern nation state, precipitated at the behest of
the rich and powerful, who Rousseau believed cheated the populous into letting
go of their civil liberties and who instituted inequality as a fundamental feature of
human society. Somehow from this milieu came large-scale political projects
emerging from the American, French and British revolutions, through the
atomization of parliamentary democracy vis-a-vis local and national election
cycles, and the hijacking of ‘reason’ applied to matters of social and political
organization.
In general, both the Philosophes and the Modernes were equally devoted
to current events such as the rise of the commercial industry, cultural
developments in art and literature, as well as the philosophical and scientific
developments of their contemporaries as well as those of their ancient
predecessors. The commercial industry during the eighteenth century became
increasingly important. The rise of mechanization, or what some have described
as Fordism, precipitated in England with early industrialization, namely, in 1765
when James Hargreaves (c.1720-1778) a carpenter by trade, invented his
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not necessarily mutually exclusive concepts pertaining to social and political
concepts as well. With the benefit of hindsight, the consequences of this were not
only the rise of nationalism throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth century in
Europe and beyond, but also pointed assessments attempting to define national
character (using art and culture as a means of developing this definition).
Therefore, the Enlightenment must be seen within the context of nation building
and the development of national identity as a whole. After the French Revolution,
European intellectual history went through what those lated coined the Counter-
Enlightenment, but the main ideas stemming from the Enlightenment continued
to grow beyond the borders of France, Germany, Holland, the United States and
England. By the time Italy was politically unified with the addition of Venice in
1866 and Rome in 1870, the ideas of national character and espirit philosophique
in relation to reason, which had been percolating throughout Europe for over 100
years, were at last given the fertile soil of a politically unified Italy to take root.
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Part II. The Risorgimento and the Venice Biennale
Flash Mob Solidarity Sit-In Against Border Politics and Spanish Austerity Policy, Spanish Pavilion,
Giardini, Venice, 2011 (Creative Commons)
The historical events leading up to the unification of Italy also known as
the Risorgimento, are complex, multifaceted and unique from region to region.
From 1559 to 1713, most of Italy was under the rule of Habsburg Spain followed
by the rule of Habsburg Austria from 1713–1796. These events were followed by
the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) which saw Venice, or what was
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formally known as the Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia, remaining
independent for over a millennium (697 – 1797). The Republic of Venice
remained independent partially due to its unique topography but mostly due to its
proclivity for trade and the economic prosperity acquired by the city-state during
the High Middle Ages.1 According to Edward Muir, author of Civic Ritual in
Renaissance Venice (1986), “in an act of communal genius, late medieval and
Renaissance Venetians intertwined the threads of parochialism, patriotism, and
the ideal of la vita civile to weave their own sort of republican, popular piety.” In
this endeavor, the Republic of Venice anticipated Rousseau’s warning in the
Contrat sociale, “that a state, if it is to endure, must enlist not only the interests of
men but their passions as well.”2 These “passions” alluded to by Rousseau
inferred myths and grand narratives collectively cultivated by Venetians who
shared a geopolitical history, something they were able to collectively cultivate for
over 1,100 years, passed down in the canons of painting, music, literature and
drama. The Venetian, Florentine, Napolietan and Roman canons went on to
provide the foundation for a unified Italy to celebrate and promote its national
character internationally. This was without a doubt a quintessential aspect in the
early days of the Venice Biennale, whereby all other nation states could
participate and celebrate their cultural identities as well.
1 Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice, “The Meaning of the Myth”, page 10, Princeton University Press, 1986. 2 Ibid.
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By 1796, the Republic of Venice lost its independence and was no longer
able to defend itself from the armies of Napoleon, succumbing to the Austrian
occupation shortly thereafter after Napoleons defeat at Waterloo.
As such, the long history of events that led to the unification and creation
of the Italian nation state took a number of years to realize. In 1798, The Papal
States and Rome fell largely under French military influence culminating with the
invasion of French forces and troops. At this time the rest of Italy was under the
direct influence of Habsburg Spain and Habsburg Austria. This situation
remained largely unchanged until The Congress of Vienna (1814-1815), held in
response to Napoleons defeat in 1814, was tasked with redrawing the map of the
European continent in which Italy returned to the position of pre-Napoleonic small
independent states. After the Congress of Vienna, the north eastern portion of
present day Italy again came under heavy Austrian influence, and at the time, the
struggle for unification was seen by many Italians as primarily in opposition to the
Austrian Empire and the Habsburgs, who in turn vigorously repressed nationalist
sentiments.1 Austrian diplomat Klemens von Metternich who attended the
Congress of Vienna, even went so far as to state that the word “Italy” meant
nothing more than "a geographic expression."2 According to Henrik Mouritsen,
The Carbonari (coal-burners) emerged as a secret revolutionary organization in
southern Italy in the early nineteenth century, inspired by the principles of the 1 Henrik Mouritsen, Italian Unification: A Study in Ancient and Modern Historiography, University of London Institute of Classical Studies, 1998. 2Quoted inAstarit Tommaso (2000). Between Salt Water And Holy Water: A History Of Southern Italy. p. 264.
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French Revolution and organized many political actions and interventions
beginning around 1820. It did not take long for the Carbonari movement, led by
Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini, to spread into the Papal States, the
Kingdom of Sardinia, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Modene and the
Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. In addition, there were also several conservative
constitutional monarchic figures involved in these early revolts, including Count
Cavour and Emmanuel II, who would later become the first king of a unified Italy.
The early revolutionary activity from 1820-1830 culminated in the Two Sicilies
insurrection (1820), followed by the Piedmont insurrection (1823), both of which
tried to expel Austrian rule and unify the Italian peninsula. Both of these
insurrections failed and prompted the Austrian army to march across the Italian
peninsula, crushing the resistance of each province that had previously revolted
and arresting many Italian leaders of the movement. By 1848, revolutionary
sentiments had sprung up again, beginning on January 5 with a strike in
Lombardy as citizens quit smoking and playing the lottery thus denying Austria
the associated tax revenue, in an act of collective economic civil disobedience.1
In February 1848, there were also revolts in Tuscany the results of which were a
newly formed Tuscan constitution, after which a breakaway provisional
government was formed. Soon thereafter, in February 1848, Pope Pius IX
granted a constitution to the Papal States. After the War of 1859, also known as
1Henrik Mouritsen, Italian Unification: A Study in Ancient and Modern Historiography, University of London Institute of Classical Studies, 1998.
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the Second War of Italian Independence, only four states remained in Italy – the
Austrians in Venice, the Papal States, the newly expanded Kingdom of
Piedmont-Sardinia (annexed in the war of 1859), and the Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies, with Naples added shortly thereafter. On February 18, 1861, Victor
Emmanuel organized the deputies of the first Italian Parliament in Turin, with the
Parliament declaring Victor Emmanuel II the King of Italy. Only Rome and Venice
remained under foreign occupation, with the kingdom of Italy seizing upon the
outbreak of the Austro-Prussian war in 1866, to regain control of Venice. Rome
was not fully under Italian rule until 1870 when French troops were recalled
following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, with the subsequent fall of
Napoleon III officially ending the Second Empire period. This long struggle for
independence and unification no doubt had a tremendous influence on the
formation of the inaugural Venice Biennale. However, with political unification
fully achieved, the Italian nation state now sought to unify itself culturally as well,
and thus, the oldest and longest running exhibition of contemporary art in the
world, la Biennale di Venezia, was born in 1895.
The initial idea for the Venice Biennale came in 1803 when the mayor of
Venice, Riccardo Selvatico, and the Venetian City Council passed a resolution to
set up a biennale exhibition of Italian art. This resolution was a smart move and
in 1894, it was decided to adopt an invitation system by which to invite selected
foreign artists, decided by a jury, of which the economist and scholar Antonio
Fradeletto was nominated Secretary General. Throughout 1894-95, construction
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was underway for the Palazzo dell'Esposizione (exhibition palace), located in the
Giardini di Castello, comprised of a distinctly neoclassical structure, an
architectural evocation of Classical and republican virtues.
Image 3: Palazzo dell'Esposizione, Giardini, 1895 (Stolen from the Biennale’s Site, O.G. shit)
The inaugural biennale was also held to coincide with the twenty-fifth wedding
anniversary of the King and Queen, Uberto I and Margherita di Savoia. This was
done in order to enhance the publicity of the Biennale and to add to the event a
level of international prestige. According to Enzo Di Martino, the first biennale in
1895 attracted 224,327 visitors over a period of six months, with 516 works by
129 Italian artists and 156 international artists, also generating an immense
amount of profit from not only entrance fees but also the sale of 186 art works.1
Indeed as Valetine Moreno suggests, “the [city] council based their project on the
1Enzo Di Martino, The History of the Venice Biennale, BPR Publishers, 2005.
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successful experience of the Great Exhibition (1851) and the Monaco
International Art Fair, seen as a mechanism to boost the local economy at an
international level.” No doubt, the inaugural Venice Biennale was modelled on
other large-scale exhibitionary projects including the Paris Salon, more so after
it’s collapse largely after 1881. The next five biennales held in 1897, 1899, 1901,
1903, and 1905, were all held in the main exhibition venue, the Palazzo
dell'Esposizione, until Belgium built its own separate pavilion in 1907. Enzo Di
Martino asserts that it was at this time the municipality of Venice encouraged
states to begin constructing their own venues in the Giardini, in order to reduce
the economic burden on the city and to increase international participation. This
proved to be an ingenious move with the Biennale significantly expanding in size
while simultaneously transferring burdensome financial liabilities to nations
desiring to participate. Following the construction of the Belgian pavilion in 1907,
other countries quickly followed suit, including Hungary, Germany and Great
Britain in 1909, France in 1912 and Russia in 1914. As Moreno points out,
“although this shift demanded a considerable financial investment from those
particiapting, it also enabled the existence of ‘national exhibitionary projects’
whereby states were now assured curatorial, aesthetic and political autonomy
and carte blanche over whom and what is shown and displayed. These pavilions
in essence function as de facto embassys and factories pumping out the culture
of those in charge, those towing the party line, those ultimately subsumed within
the production machine of large scale national propaganda projects.
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Between 1916 and 1918 the Biennale was cancelled due to the outbreak
of the First World War. When the Biennale resumed in 1920, there were some
deep organizational changes. For the first time in the Biennale’s history, the post
of the Mayor of Venice and President of the Biennale was split. The government
commissioner, Nunzio Vitelli, appointed Giovanni Bordiga as president, whilst the
new secretary general was Vittorio Pica. Emerging from this came an intense
conflict between schools of art and different ideologies, made explicit much later
during the Cold War. In 1922, following the appointment of Pica and his proclivity
towards the Impressionists and Die Brück, the town council was set up as an
administrative board to work alongside him, initially comprised of 7 members
functioning in part as a board of directors. In 1930, following these structural
changes yet another series of significant changes were once again enacted, this
time by the national fascist government. These changes inextricably transformed
the Biennale yet again, with an Ente Autonomo (Autonomous Board) by Royal
Decree and law no. 33 of 13-1-1930. Changes were also passed concerning
financing and the board’s articles of association by a decree in 1931.1
According to Nancy Jachec, author of Politics and Painting at the Venice
Biennale (2007), these new wave of legislations enacted in 1930 allowed
Mussolini to use the Biennale as a propaganda machine for his regime. Jachec
states that “by 1942 [the Biennale] had become largely a showcase for Axis and
Axis-occupied countries, and for neutrals.” Interestingly, in 1930, the pavilion of
1Enzo Di Martino, The History of the Venice Biennale, BPR Publishers, 2005.
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the United States was built in the Giardini. In 1935 however, Italy was expelled
from the League of Nations for invading Ethiopia and the regime cultivated its
alliance with Germany, thus limiting participation in the Biennale largely to Axis
and Axis occupied nations. The outbreak of war disrupted the Biennale yet again,
with the last edition of the event held in 1942, resuming again in 1948, with
Europe in shambles and in dire need of new moral, political and cultural
consciousness, following the atrocities of both World Wars. According to Jachec,
immediately following the Second World War the Biennale turned into “a tool for
national and international reconstruction,” gearing toward what became known as
“the idea of Europe”, formally introduced in 1955 the mandate of which was to:
Strengthen cultural relations with a view to developing European culture, to make Europe
a single cultural entity without thereby sacrificing its remarkable variety, to disseminate
the idea of European unity and to foster the European spirit in this and future
generations.1
In May 1947, the Italian Communist Party (Partito Communista Italiano – PCI)
was expelled from the national government, a prerequisite for Italy to acquire
Marshall Aid, despite the fact the party made up nearly 20% of the popular vote.2
Jachec suggests that this situation proved incredibly polarizing for the Biennale
and the visual arts in Europe in general, inextricably linked to Neorealism, the
Italian variant of Social Realism made compulsory for visual artists who were part
1Council of Europe, Directorate of Information, European Culture and Council of Europe (Stratsbourgh: Council of Europe, 1955), p. 153. 2 This is an estimate. In 1946, the PCI won 19%, which translated into 104 deputies; its joint ticket with the PSI in 1948 yielded 140. Paul Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics 1943-1988) (London: Penguin, 1990). Pp. 99, 118.
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of the U.S.S.R. This was part of Moscow’s response to the events of 1947-48
including the Marshall Plan, the establishment of Western Europe, and Atlantic
organizations such as the Committee for European Economic Cooperation and
NATO. In fact, a study conducted by Caroline Brossat observed that the in the
1950’s there was a ‘Eurocentrist’ assumption that American culture was
intrinsically European, propagated by the Council of Europe, resulting in the
interchangeable use of the terms “European culture” with “Western culture”.
According to Jachec, “given the high number of artists involved with the PCI, the
Biennale was inevitably a flash point for conflict between the communists and the
Europeanists, whose politics spanned the spectrum of what started to become, in
1958, the centre-left.” Moreover, during the early Cold War years (1948-1964)
the Biennale became a site of cultural conflict between the ‘East’ and ‘West’, with
gesture painting epitomizing the style of the Biennale’s official post-war world
vision, soon becoming an international visual language used to unite Western
Europe and the United States on the basis of a shared European cultural
heritage. In fact, according to Frances Stonor Saunders, “starting with black
accounts siphoned off from the Marshall Plan in the late 1940s, the CIA created
or used nonprofit organizations such as the Ford Foundation to funnel millions of
dollars to institutions like the Congress for Cultural Freedom and its affiliated
programs.” Saunders’s study observed how gesture or action painting,
exemplified in the work of Jackson Pollock and other Abstract Expressionists,
was thought by many in the US art establishment to be the very embodiment of
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free and open democracy, a trend governments and regimes in Western Europe
desired to align themselves with as well. Saunders suggests that via the Museum
of Modern Art under Nelson Rockefeller, its president and advisor to Eisenhower,
the Abstract Expressionist style was heavily disseminated in clear opposition to
the style of the East and artists associated with Stalinist social realism.
Indeed as suggested above, during the early Cold War the Biennale
existed as a diplomatic tool to promote the “Idea of Europe” manifest in gesture
painting and abstract expressionism. This style of painting must be seen in
contrast to Stalinist social realism and representing two conflicting world-views,
communism and capitalism. These polarizing world-views became synonymous
with the construction of national identity vis-à-vis their formal and stylistic
differences, with the Venice Biennale becoming ground zero for cultural conflicts
that arose as a result of the Cold War.
In 1974, in solidarity with the situation in Chile, artists participating in the
Biennale decided to cancel the event that year. Instead, artists mobilized to
create a “Freedom for Chile” event to oppose Pinochet, who took power through
a violent military coup. This was perhaps the most political event in the
Biennale’s history. More recent Biennale’s have been characterisized by a lack of
formal innovation and deeply rooted apathy concerning innovative political and
controversial art works ideas. The Venice Biennale, in the wake policies put forth
by Regan and Thatcher in the late 1970’s continuing into the 1980s and into
1990s, must be seen against the backdrop of neoliberalism more generally, or
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the desire to commodify and normalize cultural expression within a framework of
financial speculation and capitalist desire.
Arguably, this same truth-value system applied to cultural enterprise that
began in the 1970s is still around today. The Venice Biennale, for its part in
attracting legions of curators, artists and critics from all over the world, has
become nothing more than a trophy case for industrialists, politicians and their
‘artistic’ and ‘creative’ friends and daughters. This can be seen in the very format
and organization of the Biennale, that has remained largely intact since the Cold
War era, with the exception of some minor organizational changes, continuing to
solicit the participation of nation states committed to the ‘idea of Europe’.
This intimate relationship between the Venice Biennale and the promotion
of national identities can be analyzed within the context of what Maurizio
Lazzarato contemporaneously describes as the “capitalist valorization of art and
culture.” Within this framework, in which States are able to integrate “artistic and
cultural practices in accordance with a strategy that superimposes disciplinary
and surveillance devices”, Lazzarato suggests these practices in effect, “feed the
tourism, ‘leisure,’ and amusement industry in order to build museum lands