Kristian von Hornsleth
“Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.”
— Kurt Vonnegut
Since when has art been regarded as a political force? Is it not rather the case that art, which sees itself as political, embodies political content and actively intervenes in politics, is denied its status as art?
No one would deny the artistic status of artists such as Michelangelo Buonarroti, Peter Paul Rubens, Diego Velázquez or Jean-Jacques David, even though their major works consist almost exclusively of politically motivated commissions. What distinguishes the art of the Borgias, the Habsburgs or Napoleon – in its embodiment of a totalitarian claim to power – from the art that Joseph Stalin publicly promoted, demanded and enforced? The examples mentioned are, for the most part, political in their own right given the era in which they were created; yet not only are they not perceived as such, but they are regarded as the splendour and high points of art history. Soviet Realism is clearly understood within this tradition of historical paintings – that is, the academically promoted painting of Europe. Up until the First World War, similar paintings were promoted and produced in the academies of Paris, Vienna and Berlin. Soviet historical paintings, by contrast, are unanimously rejected as propaganda. So what has changed?
It is not the pictorial genre that has changed, but art itself and its reception. What has changed significantly is the role publicly ascribed to art. Photography and film have taken the place of instrumentalised, largely state-sanctioned, politicised art – particularly painting. Mass media disseminate the political will of those in power, and advertising and propaganda fulfil this role. Today, it is primarily television and social media that decide elections and disseminate the messages of the economic and political elites. Publicly funded art, on the other hand, seems to have turned its back on this kind of messaging.
This makes it all the more astonishing that Kristian von Hornsleth’s clearly political artworks are denied artistic merit by the leading art institutions, collections and funding bodies. Politically correct art and artists are promoted in every possible way. Note the term ‘politically correct’! Hornsleth does not seem to fall into this category, however hard he tries. In what follows, we shall identify significant parallels with Hornsleth’s conception of art and his understanding of the work of art by drawing on key historical figures in political art. We shall see that art which, whilst publicly funded, appears to embody political content, in reality comes across as almost entirely apolitical and restorative, and is often reactionary in nature. The criteria which we can identify historically—and which are directed specifically against the funded, institutionally exhibited and academically mediated artwork—do not align with the prevailing political agenda and are therefore not part of the official discourse. It is only logical, then, that it is precisely these restorative and often reactionary forces that deny a work of art its artistic merit. In art history, this usually leads, in hindsight, to a special institutional appreciation, as the examples will clearly demonstrate. At the time of their creation, they are dismissed as scandalous and of poor quality.
Phrases in our everyday language such as ‘naturally’ (as a matter of course) or ‘in the nature of things’ point to the fundamental significance of the concept of nature. As early as the Romantic period, a keen interest in nature – coupled with a heightened focus on inner life and emotions – had emerged as a counter-movement to industrialisation.
Today, more than ever, critical questions are being raised in this regard: ecological problems such as the scarcity of raw materials and environmental pollution are the consequences of the over-exploitation of finite and renewable natural resources. Events beyond human control, such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, are natural disasters on a human scale. The call for intervention in natural processes to protect against such natural hazards stands in contrast to the aforementioned cultural critique.
What else connects Kristian von Hornsleth to Hogarth? The participants in the ‘Homeless Tracker Project’ are living ‘Modern Moral Subjects’. One could compare the complete subversion of the art world’s contemporary expectations to Hogarth. ‘Fuck you, art lovers’. Like Hogarth, the works express direct criticism of the socio-political conventions that perpetuate conditions such as homelessness by largely tolerating or ignoring them. In the ‘City of London’, one of the main theatres of today’s global capitalism, one might conclude, in the words of Karl Marx, that the more homeless people there are, the more those with homes and jobs can be confronted with the potential loss of both. The threat hangs in the air: this is what could happen to you if you don’t conform. After all, for all three—Hogarth, Marx and Hornsleth—the setting of the action is London. Unlike Hogarth, Hornsleth is no longer merely an artist, and unlike Marx, he is not solely a theorist and philosopher; what Hornsleth is above all else is an artist and a political activist. He accepts the failure of the project as an opportunity for real improvement. The homeless people consciously choose to become ‘Modern Moral Subjects’ and to act as avatars of an existential and scathing social critique, right where they find themselves: in the City of London, the quintessential capitalist Moloch. They recognise an economic and moral purpose for themselves in their participation.
The Spanish painter and printmaker of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, devoted his private works to exploring the depths of human depravity. Goya, who owed his career to commissions and the favour of powerful patrons, proclaimed artistic autonomy in a speech to the Academy of Arts in 1792 and called for freedom of artistic expression. Professors, he argued, should not impose rules on art; rather, the artist should be free. In 1797, he himself began a series of masterful capriccios. In these, he castigated the excesses of the feudal system and criticised the arbitrariness of those in power and the persecution of supposed heretics. Goya was interested in the dark side of reason and in psychological and traumatic extremes. In contrast to his work as a court painter, Goya created his prints out of personal interest. This enabled him to capture, through artistic and technical means, his criticism of the injustices and fellow human beings of his time, his experiences of war, suffering, despair and death, as well as his view of the futility and absurdity of existence, pushing the boundaries of what can be depicted. Today, from an artistic perspective, they are regarded as absolute masterpieces of printmaking.
Von Hornsleth shares Goya’s fascination with the psychological and pathological depths of human existence, specifically at both extremes of society and their interdependencies: psychopaths, the traumatised, the poor, the sick, and the degenerate rich and powerful. Hornsleth explores the failure of today’s social elites against a backdrop of psychological and material misery. In Hornsleth’s work, these extreme psychological situations are masterfully brought to life on screen by Grant Alexander. Apparent everyday life becomes personal, engaging, and, within her surreal visual worlds, reveals itself as enigmatic, grotesque and nightmarish real-life scenarios. Like Goya, Hornsleth denounces the hypocrisy of his fellow human beings as well as social and political injustices. Pathologies, traumas and severe drug addiction play a decisive role in this.
In 1819, Théodore Géricault presented his monumental painting The Raft of the Medusa at the Paris Salon in the Louvre. Having come into a fortune through an inheritance, the artist could afford not to produce commissioned works. Almost all major paintings were pre-ordered by the government for public buildings. Like Goya, Géricault was fascinated by the depiction of the defeated and the maimed. But were such subjects suitable for a monumental history painting? ‘The Raft of the Medusa’ depicted a human tragedy triggered by the incompetence and recklessness of an inept social elite. The stark depiction of the elites’ failure in such a context caused a scandal, particularly as Géricault otherwise fulfilled the pictorial conventions and mastery of history painting to the highest degree. Another of his series of paintings of interest in this context is The Five Monomaniacs. Through these five monomaniacs, Géricault criticised medicine and its basic healthcare provision. Through his oil portraits, he attributed – consciously or unconsciously – a significance to the mentally ill figures he immortalised that was a novelty in both social and artistic terms.
Hornsleth shares with Géricault the complete autonomy of his conceptually sophisticated works, such as the ‘Homeless Tracker Project’. Projects of this nature, set within the sphere of social work carried out by street workers, are usually conceived and implemented by the public sector or large social organisations or foundations. They take place far removed from museums and academies, in night shelters, drug consumption rooms, hospitals or cemeteries. ‘Then the King will reply to them: “Amen, I say to you: whatever you did for one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did for me.” Then he will say to those on his left: ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels! For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink; I was a stranger and you did not welcome me; I was naked and you did not clothe me; I was sick and in prison, and you did not visit me. ‘Whatever you did for one of the least of these my brothers, you did for me…’
Géricault could afford to paint The Raft of the Medusa; Hornsleth can afford to do so. Hornsleth is interested here in portraits of people who do not hide their weakness or illness, but seek to preserve their pride and courage to face life. The film and the documentary, drawing an analogy with the documentation of the elites’ failure against the backdrop of the events, bear clear witness to this. Now the film just needs to be screened at the festivals in Cannes, Venice or Berlin. It is certainly to be hoped that this will happen, and the festivals are strongly advised to do so.
Exactly 100 years after the exhibition of The Raft of the Medusa in 1919, a generation of German artists returned traumatised from the First World War. Artists such as George Grosz and John Heartfield refused to adhere to the artistic conventions and visual codes of the pre-war era. The art of ‘New Objectivity’ saw itself as a mirror of society, realistically reflecting its social and cultural upheavals. George Grosz became famous for his socially and socially critical paintings and drawings created in the 1920s and attributed to New Objectivity. These political works are characterised by depictions that are, in some cases, extremely graphic and provocative. Typical subjects include the big city, its seedy underbelly – such as murder, perversion or violence – as well as the class divisions evident within it. In his works, he mocks the ruling circles of the Weimar Republic, highlights social contrasts and criticises, in particular, the economy, politics, the military and the clergy. “Shut up and carry on serving”.
John Heartfield, an artist and activist who was a friend of Grosz’s, later put it this way: “We realised – or perhaps I, in particular, realised – that the pencil was too weak to really drive home to people what actually needed to be said at that time.” Heartfield saw his art as a means of fighting for the right cause. For him, that was the communist revolution. During the First World War, a brief spell of military service, the daily reality of war and the surge in nationalism led Heartfield to become politically active: he anglicised his name to protest against anti-British war propaganda. In 1918, he joined the KPD immediately after its foundation.
Together with Grosz, he developed the political photomontage. Heartfield, a trained painter and commercial artist, was the first to combine various photographs and texts into collages. In this way, he designed books and illustrations for communist magazines, as well as posters and propaganda material for the KPD’s election campaign. In his photomontages, Heartfield often employed satire, subjecting his opponents to scathing ridicule.
Hornsleth shares a particular affinity with Grosz and Heartfield for the direct, confrontational and aggressive treatment of political and socially critical themes. One could not help but be political; one had to be. Traumatised by the war, there was no going back to the visual conventions of the pre-war era. Hornsleth is not traumatised by the war. He is traumatised by the constant and explicit rejection of his work by the art establishment and its representatives. ‘You can do whatever you like, because they fundamentally reject this political stance and do everything in their power to prevent it from seeping into the institutions, as otherwise they would have to change and take a political stand.’ Much like Grosz and Heartfield did, Hornsleth uses the media as if they were cushions in a game of billiards. The ball remains in play, gains momentum and, above all, becomes political on the media level. The artistic action becomes a political act through the amplification of its message in the media. Hornsleth becomes what Grosz and Heartfield intended; he becomes a political actor. These direct, strikingly clear and unvarnished views are clearly expressed in the Hornsleth Investment Company. He sets up an investment fund and, for 50,000 euros, buys only shares in arms-manufacturing companies. A stark illustration of the economic unscrupulousness of a profit-driven investment that disregards moral or ethical concerns. The Danish philosopher Ole Fogh Kirkeby answers the question of what he thinks of the artistic idea: ‘This project functions as a sort of anti-project when compared to all the ethical investments, and in doing so it clearly reveals a double standard in the economy. At the same time, it is realistic art. Furthermore, any kind of security can be viewed as a work of art, because they exist in a closed world that references other worlds. And that is how art exists. Sometimes you can isolate it and remove it from the world from which it originates, placing it in another world. When art, at a certain point, allows the bigger picture to represent itself, it will have the same effect, because the actual picture will shift from being an idealised portrait to a non-figurative image. It is what it is. And in reality, it is the same with your shares. Ultimately, they relate to the real world by being fictional.”
“To write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric” is a statement by Theodor W. Adorno from his essay Cultural Criticism and Society, which was written in 1949 and first published in 1951. The essay Cultural Criticism and Society emerged after the Nazi era out of a fundamental mistrust of the potential of culture and its practitioners. The French author, filmmaker, artist and revolutionary Guy Debord offered two possible responses to this question concerning post-war art. The Society of the Spectacle (*La société du Spectacle*) is Debord’s magnum opus, published in 1967. It is a radical indictment of modern industrial society, capitalism, the bureaucracy of real socialism, the commodity form and the modern techniques of governance associated with it. The book had a major influence on the French student movement of May 1968 in Paris and later achieved cult status in art and subculture. There is also a ‘film adaptation’ of The Society of the Spectacle:
A film collage created by Debord in 1973, which combines allegorical scenes from Hollywood films, Soviet cinema, soft-porn films, documentary footage of the May 1968 unrest in France and other material with a voice-over commentary by Debord, thereby placing them in new contexts. ‘In the era of its dissolution, art […] is an art of change and, at the same time, the pure expression of impossible change. The more grandiose its claim, the more its true realisation lies beyond it. […] Its avant-garde is its disappearance.’
When Debord made these statements, it was not yet entirely clear what scale postmodernism and its excesses of deconstruction would reach. Art became a nihilistically oriented, empty cypher. Anyone could do anything, provided it could hold its own within the art system, which had degenerated into a pure cultural-industrial and media marketing machine. This applies in particular to the staged spheres of art institutions and their marketing platforms. The aim is the idolatrous worship of feeble-minded and increasingly frenzied nonsense. The strength of art’s claim to legitimacy is thus validated in the eyes of the social elites by the fact that, so far, it has proved its worth as an investment asset. Art, however, which truly champions and serves humanity for humanity’s sake, is precisely that which is unsuitable as an investment object, because its ‘Modern Moral Subjects’ are not suited as decoration for the salons of social upstarts or the reception halls of the temples of successful capitalism. On the contrary, it fundamentally challenges precisely these social conventions – first and foremost in socio-political terms, and only secondarily in artistic terms. Thus, Debord applies this to art: ‘The more grandiose its claim, the more its true realisation lies beyond it! […] Its avant-garde is its disappearance!’ Its value arises from the resulting improvement in people’s living conditions. How does this differ from social activism? I strip social work of the presumption of innocence and lay bare the true nature of a situation. The work of large social welfare organisations and psychotherapy is a very lucrative and crisis-proof business built on the misery of others. Helping them merely serves to keep them within their own support system for as long as possible. In this sense, the refugees in Germany were big business for social welfare organisations and second-hand shops. By addressing this within the realm of art, Hornsleth broadens the scope of experience and deepens our understanding of the issue.
The Langeland School Massacre Project is an artwork comprising a series of 100 photographs. Four school classes of 14-year-old pupils took part in this artistic performance, creating a nightmare that, from the outset, culminated in the excessive ‘slaughter and murder’ of their fellow pupils in a shooting. Hornsleth himself speaks of a latent propensity for violence that can be triggered in extreme situations. Thus, generations grow up playing war simulations and killing games, maturing into potentially violent ‘sleeper agents’. These are ordinary people in their familiar, sheltered surroundings, and on cue, the excess of violence erupts. Children who ran wildly about with prop machine guns and fake blood, hunting down their classmates. It thus became a completely serious event, in each case far removed from any kind of play. Having been trained to the highest tactical standards through killing games in their bedrooms, they proceeded with perfectionism, conviction and skill, carrying out the act as if it were a job. The photographs clearly reveal the drastic nature of the events. Striking images of the banal killing plan and its execution. Debord’s demands could scarcely be illustrated more clearly than with real weapons and real deaths.
‘Social sculpture’ is an art-theoretical term used to describe art that aims to have a formative influence on society. Societies, actions and processes in which people creatively transform and shape circumstances are also described in this way. Drawing on an ‘expanded concept of art’, the German artist Joseph Beuys coined and utilised these terms to explain his vision of art that transforms society. In stark contrast to an understanding based on formal aesthetics, the concept of art propagated by Beuys encompasses human action aimed at structuring and shaping society. Consequently, the concept of art is no longer limited to the materially tangible artefact. The theory of ‘Social Sculpture’ holds that every individual can contribute to the common good through creative action and thereby have a tangible impact on society. This idea gave rise to the much-quoted tenet of ‘Social Sculpture’: ‘Every person is an artist’, which Joseph Beuys first articulated in 1967 as part of his political activities. ‘Everyone can play a part in shaping life – particularly in politics and the economy – in a social and creative way.’ To this end, he set up an information office for the Organisation for Direct Democracy through Referendums at documenta 5 in 1972 and stood as a candidate for the European Parliament in 1979 as a representative of the Green Party.
Joseph Beuys once said, ‘Without the rose, we won’t do it; we won’t even start.’ Here, the red rose symbolises love for humanity. Without love for humanity, we won’t even start. For Kristian von Hornsleth, this love plays a major role, though he does not shy away from taking it to the extreme. The Hornsleth Village project: 100 people from the small village of Buteyongera in Uganda are changing their names to ‘Hornsleth’… Each person will go through the official name-change process… Each person will receive an identity card showing their new name, ‘Hornsleth’… Each person will be photographed with their new Hornsleth ID… A professional documentary film crew is documenting the events… The project is a business agreement between Hornsleth and the appointed village leaders… Participants will receive livestock in return for their involvement, as agreed… A locally established system for distributing animals is being introduced…“
Hornsleth regards the villagers as business partners and treats them as equals. He negotiates solutions with them whereby they sell something they possess and have always been able to do without. Everyone takes part and builds a communal farm; they work together and benefit together. Art is linked to the collective realisation of a jointly developed idea. More than 10 years after the project’s completion, the village and its inhabitants are still faring significantly better than other comparable villages. The awareness of having rights and standing up for them, as well as of owning property and safeguarding it, has led to a lasting development of the villagers’ self-confidence. One of the project’s namesakes now sits in the country’s parliament and represents the interests of his own and other villages. An ongoing process of individual and collective empowerment is taking place. Beuys would have called such a work ‘social sculpture’, because it artistically and humanely reshapes the body of society – in this case, the village in Uganda. To this end, he called on everyone to play their part in their respective living environments. In this sense, every person is an artist.
The truly tragic aspect of art in the 1990s and 2000s was the deliberate dismantling of all art-theoretical paradigms and rules; this led to art losing its magic. Ultimately, anyone could do anything and simply declare it to be art. True to the motto: ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.’ The opinions of two or three enthusiasts produced the sense of art. Ultimately, this led to a total loss of the visual arts’ unique artistic standing. Thus, all that remains is the indicator of institutional endorsement through exhibitions and funding, and the fine line of capitalist exploitability as a cultural-industrial commodity. For Adorno, the culture industry manipulates people. This manipulation is neither always intentional nor controlled, nor does it strive in any particular direction. Nevertheless, this water dripping onto the rock of society inevitably hollows it out. Adorno identifies the manipulative effect in two ways: the individual is reduced by the culture industry to the role of consumer, and the culture industry feeds consumers with trivial, superficial trifles. However, this also makes it clear that the culture industry is a form of cultural shaping led by elites, and not what the predecessor term ‘mass culture’ might suggest; it is not a culture of the masses, nor is it a folk culture. Adorno also writes this in Cultural Criticism and Society: the ‘elites’ in Adorno’s sense, however, are not agents of a conspiracy. They are not intent on dominating culture – precisely because of its critical influence – and driving it into triviality; rather, they are agents of capitalism, which, by its very structure, ‘attempts’ to turn everything into a commodity. The state funding system provides a counter-model to this by supporting art which, whilst not economically exploitable, is nevertheless beneficially harmless to the state’s interests, as in the case of the ‘world apostle’ Ai Weiwei.
Rage Against the Machine is a band that was formed in Los Angeles in 1991. Frontman de La Rocha’s lyrics deal with political and social issues, as well as personal problems, which the band expresses through a crossover blend of metal, hip-hop, punk, funk and alternative rock. Rage Against the Machine is the band’s debut album, released in 1992. The cover features the famous photograph taken in 1963 by Malcolm Browne of the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức, in which he sets himself alight. He was protesting against the regime of Ngô Đình Diệm and its suppression of Buddhism. IRA activists, Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton and Bobby Sands are mentioned in the acknowledgements. ‘Killing in the Name’ is a track from their debut album, released in 1992. The frequently repeated line ‘And now you do what they told ya. And now you’re under control’ culminates in Zack de la Rocha’s shout: ‘Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me! Motherfucker!’ Hornsleth does what we all should do.