Counter-Institution: Performance and Institutional Critique

Out of 100 members of the current US Senate, only one has a college degree in arts. In the House of Representatives, the situation is even bleaker: while some ten representatives, out of 435, have experience in some kind of artistic practice (music, writing, or video design), again only one holds an art-related degree. On state level, the situation is better, but not much. Is this severe under-representation of artists among elected officials the result of their lack of interest in institutional position of the arts? How would arts policies in the US look if more elected officials had background in the arts and actual stakes in this sector? 'Counter-Institution' brings together artistic practice and policy. On the one hand, we will explore the 'institutional critique' of artists such as Andrea Fraser, Hito Steyerl, and Fred Wilson, and on the other, we will investigate government initiatives that affected the arts, from the New Deal in the 1930s to the severe defunding of the National Endowment for the Arts in the 1990s, to increasing privatization of art institutions in the first decades of the new millennium.