Notes on What Matters
"There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's a the answer". Gertrude Stein
"Most of what matters in your life takes place in your absence." Salman Rushdie
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In 1968 the Venice Biennale was halted to a stop by student protesters whose resistance to the Vietnam War underscored a fundamental belief: the agency that proclaims war was tied to the agency that affirms the meaning and consumption of art. Much to the dismay of the Biennale numerous Italian artists decided to withdraw from the exhibition. The political upheaval forced the Biennale to redress its internal organization, which resulted in the suspension of several of its traditional activities including the presentation of prizes until 1986.

Politically, we have not moved much further than the year 1968 as witnessed by the most recent historical events. Ideologically, this year's Biennale proposes to be the most autonomous project to date, leaving the spectator in charge of his/ her own destiny.
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Given the current cultural milieu, a basic assumption of an exhibition such as Clandestine would be to assert the romantic meaning of the word. In order to break away from our imprisoned thoughts inevitably bound by logic and grammar, the concept of Clandestine can be employed in the philosophical sense with respect to the theories held by Gilles Deleuze. Among the range of philosophical ideas put forth by Deleuze was that "thinking" is at the centre of creation and the transformation of lite. We "think" not to gain knowledge but to be a part of creation. Language is creation in response to experience. Here we come back to the limitations of language and form, specifically in response to the concept of "clandestine," which if one were to adopt a Deleuzean stance of the word wouid mean: concepts exist precisely because they create possibilities for thinking beyond what is already known or assumed.

Therefore, a philosophical use of "concept" does not adhere to opinion or a belief system. In Deleuze's view, opinion serves to reduce difference and complexity, perpetuating wide-ranging generalizations. Further, he cites that art creates new possibilities not because it conveys ideas or messages or offers us some theory of the world but because it stretches language to its limits.

This exhibition aims to dislodge the meaning of clandestine, calling upon the active imagination of the viewer/reader as he/she creates, mutates and produces connections from different vantage points.
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While numerous Clandestine artists traverse the landscapes of the social, physical, political and institutional in order to reconfigure the possibilities of such dynamics, others create a world of hyper-reality where the divisions of truth and fiction are distorted, where high and low culture collapse and where the lines between dominance and resistance no longer exist. Some artists in the exhibition take a leap in their investigations of architectural space by focusing on the gaps, those "in between" sites left untapped by the majority of the public.

The construction of urban spaces (both private and public) provides a platform to launch when much social and political activity have remained on the periphery. There are several Clandestine artists who seek to problematize the physical and theoretical threads of the broken link between technology and progress, advancing the idea of social progress over the need to catch up to the race to globalize. Once again, the viewer will be reminded of the role imagination plays in both the reception and production of the works. Indeed dreams, memories and allegories are summoned throughout the exhibition space. Everyday objects turn into images of a pause, rendering them in some instances child-like in scale as if the artist has reorganized the objects in his/ her imaginings only to regurgitate them in reality.
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The resonance of Deleuze's theory of art as supple language is ironically described in the following fictional story of a clandestine roaming in the world. It is taken from Walid Raad's Atlas Group Archives, a collection 0f documents, films and photographs aimed at disseminating information about the history of Lebanon. Operator #17 was part of a surveillance team of Lebanese security cameramen who were set up in 1992 on the Corniche seaside in Beirut. The cameras were set in mini-vans at eighteen metre intervals in order to monitor the activities of vanous "dregs" of the population - fortune tellers, petty thieves, political pundits, spies. For four years every afternoon Operator #17 fixed his camera on the sunset, watching the horizon until darkness fell, after which he would return to his duties of filming the boardwalk. Even though he was later dismissed, Operator #17 was allowed to keep his video footage. Operator #17 and the artists in Clandestine share a common thread: they champion life over knowledge and creativity over critique, revealing how the most prosaic action can alter the rhetoric of resistance. One cannot be a clandestine so much as to believe in the concept of clandestine. Sylvia Chivaratonond.
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24.
Que l'école soit, dit-on, fort menacée par une particularité aussi insignifiante que le foulard de quelques filles amène à soupçonner que ce n'est jamais de vérité qu'il y est question. Mais d'opinions basses et conservatrices. N'a-t-on pas vu des politiciens et des intellectuels affirmer que l'école est d'abord là pour "former des citoyens"? Sombre programme. De nos jours, le "citoyen" est un petit jouisseur amer, cramponné à un système politique dont tout semblant de vérité est forclos.

27
En vérité, la Loi foulardière n'exprime qu'une chose: la peur. Les Occidentaux en général, les Français en particulier, ne sont plus qu'un tas frissonnant de peureux. De quoi ont-ils peur? Des barbares, comme toujours. Ceux de l'intérieur, les "jeunes des banlieues", ceux de l'extérieur, les "terroristes islamistes". Pourquoi ont-ils peur? Parce qu'ils sont coupables, mais se disent innocents. Coupables d'avoir, à partir des années 1980, renié et tenté d'anéantir toute politique d'émancipation, toute raison révolutionnaire, toute affirmation vraie d'autre chose que ce qu'il y a. Coupables de se cramponner à leurs misérables privilèges. Coupables de n'être plus que de vieux enfants qui jouent avec ce qu'ils achètent. Eh oui, "dans une longue enfance on les fait vieillir". Aussi ont-ils peur de tout ce qui est un peu moins vieux qu'eux. Par exemple, une demoiselle entêtée.

31.
On a les guerres qu'on mérite. Dans ce monde transi par la peur, les gros bandits bombardent sans pitié des pays exsangues. Les bandits impérialistes pratiquent l'assassinat ciblé de ceux qui les gênent. Les tout petits bandits font des lois contre les foulards.

32.
On dira que c'est moins grave. C'est moins grave. Devant feu le Tribunal de l'Histoire, nous obtiendrons les circonstances atténuantes: "Spécialiste des coiffures, il n'a joué dans l'affaire qu'un petit rôle". Alain Badiou
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