The artist Tino Sehgal creates live encounters is currently showing at the Tate Modern. Sehgal who studied dance and ecconomics, work is challenging on several levels.
Central to his work is the ideology that there should be non product or at least lasting physical product to his encounters as he feels that the question of production is key to his generation of artists and that at this time we should be reducing our production.
The fact that Seghal none the less negotiates deals/contracts for his works which operate in our current economic structures.
This raised the question for me that if the arts were to be changed to this degree in that much of the contemporary arts were to become focused on non physical products, then that would surely also be reflected by similar shifts in other political and economic structures and understandings?
The idea of non product based art challenges the basic human insinct to produce things and therefore Sehgal’s work is of interest (particularly at this time with the current world economic situation) as it calls into question not only our economic reliance on production but also the economic structures we have in place that provide a given for our cultural attainments and how we bestow cultrual worth.
susanmortimer 