The Seduction of the Bureaucrat
De Garage, Mechelen (BE), 15 March — 4 June, 2023
Group exhibition and public program with guided tours, performances and a panel discussion in collaboration with the Hannah Arendt Institute
Participating artists: Apparatus 22, Jan Banning, Deborah Bowmann, AA Bronson, Tiago Duarte, Anna Bella Geiger, Sarah Hendrickx, LAb[au], Ariane Loze, Wesley Meuris, Vijai Patchineelam, Lieven Segers, Pilvi Takala, Office for Joint Administrative Intelligence, Axel van der Kraan, Herman Van Ingelgem, Philippe Van Wolputte, Vermeir & Heiremans
Graphic design/public mediation by Christophe Clarijs & Robin Vets
Review in Metropolis M magazine
The Seduction of the Bureaucrat is a project that shed light on an unlikely relationship—that between art and bureaucracy. Creativity and forms, procedures, and protocols do not usually go hand in hand. Artists and civil servants or managers are far apart, each in their own biotope: the studio and the office. Yet, they can hardly do without each other. Every professional artist is involved in administration, and sound, incisive policies benefit the cultural sector.
Curator Pieter Vermeulen invited about 20 visual artists to share their perspectives on bureaucracy and its role in their work. Does bureaucracy constrain creativity, or does mastery only reveal itself through limitation? Do Kafkaesque situations still occur in shadowy back rooms and dusty archives, or does today's office space look different? What impact does technology have? What does Bartleby's "I would prefer not to" mean in the context of today's work ethic of quiet quitting and burnout? Is creativity still relevant in a country where even accounting is creative? Is it up to artists to woo bureaucrats or resist the temptation of bureaucracy itself?
The exhibition's title alludes to a 1983 essay by artist AA Bronson, who described the emergence of artists' initiatives in Canada as "the humiliation of the bureaucrat." However, some 30 years later, he published another essay expressing his disappointment with the institutionalization of these initiatives and the artists involved who had become bureaucrats themselves. How can we reconcile institutional routine with charisma, and what role can artists play in doing so?