PROJECT
The MONOCULTURE project sets out some core questions, including:
What might we mean by monoculture? What is the impetus for ‘identitarian’ or nationalistic monoculture movements who do not see, or wish, their society to be pluralistic, not just in the context of Europe but globally? Might we locate positive or even emancipatory aspirations of monoculture? Might a culturally homogeneous society also be inclusive and transformational?
What lies at the fringes of monoculture, and what does it not tolerate? What may be the position of the arts within the context of monocultural ideology? Or alternatively, how might the arts look under monocultural ideology when taken to its logical conclusion?
Looking at the recent relevant past through to the present day, the project aims to address such challenging questions, beyond the tendencies and bias of liberal ‘groupthink’, as a way to consider notions of culture in a different way to established lenses such as identity politics or post-modern relativism.
MONOCULTURE formulates exploratory constellations of art, ideas and propaganda. Alongside various examples of official culture sanctioned by nation states, one of the most striking historical demonstrations of ideological monoculture in the cultural field was through the infamous 1937 ‘Entartete Kunst’ (‘Degenerate Art’) exhibition staged in Nazi Germany. Holding up the modernist avant-garde as an aberration, Nazism sought instead a decidedly unambiguous ethno-centric conception of culture inspired by a Greco-Roman imaginary. Yet monocultural conceptions of culture might also be formed through emancipatory imperatives. Some argue that a post-colonial movement such as Négritude in Senegal for example as having implemented a form of cultural homogeneity. These were among the many case studies for exploring different trajectories and intersections of monoculture, particularly their articulation in art and ideology, from the early-20th century to the present moment.
The exhibition Monoculture – A Recent History (29.05–13.09.2020, M HKA, Antwerp) begins from the principle that any understanding of ‘multiculture’, should necessitate an investigation of ‘monoculture’. The societal understanding of monoculture can be defined as the homogeneous expression of the culture of a single social or ethnic group. The project seeks to approach the notion of monoculture with an open mind. It will thus aim for an analysis of, rather than an antithesis to, monoculture, approaching it not only from historical, social, cultural and ideological perspectives, but also philosophical, linguistic and agricultural ones.
Two publications accompany the exhibition: Monoculture – A Recent History, an exhibition catalogue published by M HKA, and The Aesthetics of Ambiguity – Understanding and Addressing Monoculture, co-edited by Pascal Gielen and Nav Haq, published by Valiz as part of the Antennae – Arts in Society series.
The conference Considering Monoculture was co-organised by deBuren, M HKA and Van Abbemuseum took place at deBuren, Brussels, on 27 and 28 February 2020.
The MONOCULTURE project provides a tentative mapping, allowing for a comparative analysis of different manifestations of monoculture, as well as their reflections in art and propaganda, seeking to draw some conclusions that might be relevant for society and culture at large.
MONOCULTURE is part of ‘Our Many Europes’, a project of the confederation ‘L’Internationale’.
About the ‘L’Internationale’ confederation:
L'Internationale is a confederation of seven modern and contemporary art institutions. L'Internationale proposes a space for art within a non-hierarchical and decentralised internationalism, based on the values of difference and horizontal exchange among a constellation of cultural agents, locally rooted and globally connected. It brings together seven major European art institutions: Moderna galerija (MG+MSUM, Ljubljana, Slovenia); Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain); MACBA, Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (Spain); Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (M HKA, Antwerp, Belgium); Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie (Warsaw, Poland), SALT (Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey) and Van Abbemuseum (VAM, Eindhoven, the Netherlands). L'Internationale works with complementary partners such as HDK-Valand Academy of Art and Design (HDK-Valand, Gothenburg, Sweden) and the National College of Art and Design (NCAD, Dublin, Ireland) and together with them is presenting the programme “Our Many Europes”.
About ‘Our Many Europes’ :
Our Many Europes is a four-year programme (2018–22) comprising exhibitions, public programming, heritage exchange and institutional experimentation, organised by the European museum confederation “L'Internationale” and its partners, and co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. The programme takes the 1990s as a starting point when our current Europe was born. It aims to think speculatively about the role of culture as a driving force in showing who and how we are in the world.