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What is Transitory Art?

by Dunja Kukovec

The art of the last century is (was) subject to continuous tending towards the new; it was called modern at first, then contemporary and finally (new) media art.

Transitory art is art that exposes – at the level of concept and context – the question of the boundary. It represents a digression from the hysteria of capitalism, refusing the terminology that tends towards the new, such as modern, contemporary or (new) media art. It is taking shape in a time when invention per se or novum as such fail to be either a fetish or a solution; for many answers and (short-lived) novelties hide precisely in the substitution or alteration of context, in the transition from one reality into another and some or the same forms into others.

Our full acceptance, and often abuse of the contextuality of truth (and art) notwithstanding, there remains the key question of not abandoning the boundary, for it is only without boundaries and beyond that the impossible or the absolute may be achieved. Yet, in a time of the so-called “open society”, the perception of the boundary represents that very margin that defines both the outside and the inside. If until recently we were insisting that there are no boundaries, then also the beyond as such could not be possible. Today, we know and clearly see where the boundary (boundaries) stands, yet the “beyond” fails to come to pass. Therefore, the key question is not the abandonment of the boundaries or the narrowness of views, but rather why, despite our full knowledge and cognition, nothing really changes at the substantial social level.

Transitory art is consonant with the present in which no one is (does not want to or cannot be) neither in nor out, and in which we are aware of the answers, numerous new methods, tactics and strategies, but still fail to apply them in the geopolitically or technologically separated realities. Transitory stands for flexible, mobile, passing, unsteady, or even adaptable; while in formal terms, it may represent an event, an impression, a hack, a change of thinking or a gesture not necessarily tied to an object of art.

MUSEUM OF TRANSITORY ART
Collective institutions of the last century that have shaped the paradigm of the present with mnemotechniques, history analysis and systematic archiving, function only under the guise of the universal and the objective; in practice they involve strategies of patriarchal-colonialist forces that create particular worth (and values). One day, history will be rewritten anew and archives will be updated.

MoTA museum exists both in real and virtual space. It may occupy either an existing institution or a public space. At times, it may occupy the actual physical space, while at other times, it occupies only a contextual framework. MoTA museum is not a national or an “exclusive” stronghold, yet it institutionalizes memory and gives meaning to art. Since collective institutions are a must for the visions of the past, understanding of the present and mastering of the future, MoTA museum is a reconstructed museum that is at once utopia and reality, vision and history.

If the avant-garde movements, overwhelmed by the futuristic enthusiasm, endeavored to open, bring the museum of modern art outdoors and destroy the archives, MoTA museum adapts to the time-space situation, somehow subordinating to art. Moreover, if in the past museums represented an artistic framework within which everything could become art, now, a museum is everywhere where art is present. MoTA museum maintains at least three parameters typical of a museum, but it de-constructs and re-constructs them.

The concept of collection and ownership is being maintained through the production and financing of art projects and artists, the space is a super-space or a network, while Mediatheque and ArtistTalk represent an archive and an educational “department”.

MoTA is a museum of transitory art that can really produce something precisely by insisting on the intersection of the established form of the museum and the new field of transitory art.

COLLABORATION AND REPRESENTATION

MoTA consistently seeks a networked, horizontal and consensual way of working that finds its utmost expression in the active collaboration. Everyone takes part in decision-making and is responsible for a particular field. Along with the support of the methods of collaboration, both among the artists themselves, as well as among artists, curators, theoreticians, producers and spectators, the museum best serves the artistic project if it fully conforms to its content and various needs.

MoTA sets out to represent artistic practices and projects that are often overlooked by the existing institutions. Some artists try to avoid the predictable institutional framework, while at times, their practice may shift into other artistic fields.

Since we believe that the attempt of social and artistic engagement taking the form of discovering, unveiling of, warning against or questioning the sociopolitical, technological and informational reality does no longer represent (the only) significant deviation from anxiousness, we are also interested in subjectivity as such and the direct and autonomous creative process such as, for example, programming or painting; we aim to research into the potential artistic practices that are introverted on the one hand, and formally experimental on the other.

FROM BRIGHT IDEAS TOWARDS THE QUESTIONS OF THE EVERYDAY

Let us now return to the question of the everyday, where transitory art searches for and also finds a great deal of answers or questions. Science and theory seem not to give much importance to this question and therefore, debates about the everyday turn out to be extremely irrelevant or even absurd. However, human life is best manifested in the everyday that constitutes most of our – seemingly happy – lives.
In the revolution of the everyday, only art with its transitory nature can facilitate the understanding of ever new realities that differ, above all, by what is or is not allowed, how we behave (or how we should behave) and what state the physical body is in – sitting, standing, walking, running, driving or dancing.