Program – 23
The screening is composed of multiple contributions edited into one video file and a video interface including short descriptions and commentary. During the 180-minute screening, there are three introductions, at 14:30, 15:30, and 16:30. The lights remain switched on. Any conditions that might invite the audience into a central narrative separate from the day’s circumstances are avoided. As part of the screening, the reproduction of naturalization and formalization narratives in institutional critical milieus is addressed. And the way they manifest as myths of artistic practice’s autonomy and social relevance. The screening is an attempt to contextualize this assumed dynamic within a genealogy of conservative left-wing preemptive backlashes. From Karl Polanyi’s social conservatism via Boltanski/Chiapello’s nostalgia for disciplinary societies and Nancy Fraser’s truncated treatment of cultural recognition to Anna Kornbluh’s mourning for the Fordist family wage.
Program – 23 is an editorial collective initiated by Leslie Bauer, Richard Eß, and Maximilian Klawitter in Paris in 2023. It has since organized series of eponymous public events that included screenings, book launches, talks, or conversations i.a. at Stooj, Berlin; Pech, Vienna; The Emily Harvey Foundation, New York; Cittipunkt e.V., Berlin; di volta in volta; Tonus; Treize; and À Balzac À Rodin, all Paris. Program – 23 co-runs the small press publisher Bauer Verlag.