Institutent practices, as outlined by philosopher and art theorist Gerald Raunig, represent both an extension of theoretical demands of institutional criticism and a proposal for new organizational solutions within the art field that—without challenging the institution, like in the 1970s, or employing art in the service of the institution, like in the 1990s—offer a chance to reclaim its critical and auto-critical dimension.
The scope of instituent practices was not constrained by the narrow confines of the art field. In his landmark 2006 essay, ‘Instituent Practices: Fleeing, Instituting, Transforming’, Raunig described these practices as extending beyond particular fields, structures, and institutions as well as redefining the art of governance.
Later, Raunig concentrated his focus on practices that led to the transformation of public institutions into common ones. As he wrote in 2015 in ‘Occupy the Theater, Molecularize the Museum!’, the idea is to reorganize the remnants of the civic public sphere and a society conceived as social democratic through transforming the public institution into a common institution (Raunig’s idea of modulation includes aspects of control and discipline). The establishment of common institutions meant, as Raunig wrote, nothing else than reinventing the state.
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Raunig’s theory regarding institutional practices has only sporadically been a point of reference in the debates on the transformation of public art institutions that have taken place in Poland. This was because, among other things, Polish culture was embedded in a different economic and political context than the one Raunig wrote about. In the early 1990s, Poland went through a rapid process of systemic transformation, which led to a decline in spending on arts and culture, a disintegration of the state institution model, downsizing, and a precariously unstable environment. The transformation of state-run institutions, embedded in a decentralized government system, appeared to be a step in the right direction. It was perceived as protecting institutions from the actions of neoliberal purists, who regarded them as a remnant of state socialism and sought to dismantle or at least reduce their number in the early 1990s.
Confronted with the shock doctrine, the Polish art community, steered by a certain sense of responsibility, decided to protect the public institution. Because of the lack of trust in the neoliberal government, changes were implemented from within, on an ad hoc basis, without undermining the existing structural framework. They avoided any influence of political factors, which in the long run hindered the transformation process.
Another reason for the absence of Raunig’s thought from the Polish discourse was the country’s ideological and social landscape. The economic crisis and delegitimization of state socialism in the 1980s, followed by austerity policy and systemic transformation during the 1990s, led to the complete dismantling of the welfare state significantly earlier than in Western Europe. While the socialist welfare state offered different opportunities for development than the Western European welfare state, Polish society was never the kind of social democratic society that Raunig wrote about, and post 1989 it recognized no connection to its socialist past.
The systemic transformation led to the emergence of a Polish variant of neoconservatism, which combined neoliberal economics with conservative ideology. Public institutions subordinated to local authorities had a specific role to play within this system, which included, among other things, maintaining the existing power structure.
Another consequence of the systemic transformation was the emergence of an anti-egalitarian subjectivity, for whom the extreme libertarian ideal of personal freedom, permitting one to pursue individual interests at the expense of the collective, rose to the top of the hierarchy of values. In a world of ideas constructed in this way, there was often little room left for the construction of collective institutions. The rather timid attempts at reorganization, leaning towards democratization, socialization, or commonality of institutions seemed to be a systemic anomaly and were met with resistance or curtailed by the authorities. They were regarded as a challenge against both the institution ‘creating’ a widespread and uncritical acceptance of the validity of the ‘neoconservative’ way of seeing the world, and against the entire political order created post 1989.
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Recent years have been a period of various, overlapping crises. Deepening economic inequality, the collapse of representative democracy, the rise of fascism in politics, anti-emancipatory reactionarism, geopolitical tensions and wars, migrations, extreme weather resulting from the climate catastrophe, and technology’s domination over other areas of life all heighten anxiety and direct our attention to issues of security. The sphere of art is not free of crises. Art institutions are losing the confrontation with alternative forms of entertainment, the pandemic has accelerated the process of precarization into proletarianization (more and more people are taking up menial labour), technological developments are leading to a disruption of continuity and the erosion of cultural competences. Art has come under political pressure, becoming a field in which various forms of censorship are now in force.
It may seem that now is the moment when institutent practices can finally and victoriously step onto the stage, offering an alternative to institutions in crisis. And yet, the goals set by Raunig for institutent practices are no longer achievable today. The sense of anxiety and insecurity makes any attempt to introduce new models take on the character of nurturing practices directed at the safety and comfort of those involved. The splintering or even disintegration of the public sphere impedes its reconfiguration. It is also difficult to think that a communalizing of institutions would be tantamount to reshaping the state—it can only mean setting aside a common space for a particular group of people.
The planetary, complex nature of the overlapping crises requires a different response. This field was fairly well-defined in the book Between the Material and the Possible, edited by curator and art theorist Bassam El Baroni. The author points out the need for a comprehensive approach to the processes, regulations, institutions, technologies, networks, and operations that make up the multifaceted infrastructural arena in which we operate. The answer to obstacles is not to transform institutions, i.e., to redefine power relations, but to create infrastructures that hold the potential to transform the reality undergoing a crisis. Therefore, institutional critique is increasingly being replaced by infrastructural critique. As Marina Vishmidt wrote in ‘Between Not Everything and Not Nothing: Cuts Toward Infrastructural Critique’: ‘ … infrastructure sounds more like reality—its critique unfolds in a productive register, maybe even as production.’
This also means that art is increasingly engaged in infrastructural speculation, creating alternatives to a world in crisis. To paraphrase Raunig, we are now dealing with kinds of ‘infrastructural practices’ aimed at reinventing the world. Unfortunately, these can only arise on the basis of autonomy from an increasingly authoritarian government.
Photo by Monika Stolarska
Paweł Wodziński is a theatre director, curator, and director of art institutions. Between 2017-2022, he was the director of the Warsaw Biennale: an interdisciplinary institution operating at the intersection of art, theory, research, and activism. Member of the board of directors of the Warsaw Biennale Foundation. Author of dozens of performances and performance projects. He is also actively engaged in theory, and has published critical and analytical texts in Dialog, Notes na 6 Tygodni, and the Polish edition of Le Monde diplomatique, among other publications. He teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.