Alicia Frankovich and the Force of Failure – Column 5 (2010)
This issue of Column covers a particularly active period for Artspace, encompassing much of 2009 and the early part of 2010. It includes essays related to the three discussion events facilitated over this time as well as the exhibition programs, colour documentation of projects and an extended section on the exhibition Imprint. Across the sixteen texts, two threads of analysis can be discerned: the question of the autonomy of art as distinct from other fields of activity and the political autonomy of the art worker. Collectively the writers propose a thinking that runs counter to ideology, embracing memory, processes of historical retrieval and enactment, and challenges to dominant epistemologies. They are thought experiments made public, movements toward realising the political potential of art and writing, to reflect on, and to compel, action in the world.