Cynicism or powerlessness

In anything that presents itself as new there exists something akin to a destructive moment towards that which preceded it. This moment of radical negation marks the passage from the old to the new, and constitutes an undeniable bond. But today, it has become impossible to consider the possibility that art as totality might be revolutionary, capable of having a concrete effect on the empire and change the real. This has by now been definitively established from and within the limits of that social organization that goes by the name of art system and its associated rules. Everything that is produced within art takes place within this system. Therefore it is wrong to insist on the consolatory nature of art, given that art has abdicated from any expectation of the extra-artistic real, just as any artistic expression that plays with the misunderstanding between real or fiction appears pathetic. Therefore, any break produced by the new takes place within the sense of continuity, or art, or system that takes this name. Within this unresolved contradiction, one only partially mitigated by the rush to participate undertaken by the audience as the last bastion of the real and its authentic interests, is all the fragility of the figure of the artist himself and, in some circumstances, cynicism or powerlessness.