{"id":1337,"date":"2026-02-09T11:55:58","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T09:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ellipsis.pink\/phl\/?p=1337"},"modified":"2026-02-09T14:33:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T12:33:59","slug":"suicidal-liberalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ellipsis.pink\/phl\/?p=1337","title":{"rendered":"Suicidal liberalism?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

suicidal liberalism?<\/span><\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m writing this in my own register: direct, image-led, a little impatient with pretence, and worried about what gets lost when culture accelerates faster than people can metabolise it. I don\u2019t want to simplify the issues we face, but I also don\u2019t want to keep rewarding a tone of permanent emergency that leaves audiences numb, ashamed, or switched off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

By \u201cliberalism\u201d here I don\u2019t mean party politics. I mean the broader cultural project of openness, progress, and emancipation \u2014 and the way it can sabotage itself when speed replaces care, and when moral certainty replaces human contact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The self-sabotage of liberalism (and what contemporary art has to do with it)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Liberalism gained huge momentum in the 20th century and moved forward fast \u2014 not only in the art world, but in society at large. Somewhere at the beginning of the 21st century, it feels as if a large part of the population got lost. People weren\u2019t swept into a new age; many were left behind in turmoil: confusion, fear, isolation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I keep returning to an image: a girl standing on the edge of a 4-metre diving board for the first time. She\u2019s not \u201cstupid\u201d or \u201cbackward.\u201d She\u2019s frozen \u2014 staring into the pool, overwhelmed by height, risk, and the sense that everyone expects her to jump without hesitation. Now imagine the experienced diver. The professional should look up, recognise the dilemma, and help: slow down, explain, demonstrate, encourage, stand nearby \u2014 make the next step possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, in many corners of culture \u2014 and particularly parts of the contemporary artworld \u2014 we stormed forward. We\u2019re always hunting for the next novelty, the next urgent topic, the next moral test. We dove hard into the crisis stack: climate catastrophe, identity politics, gender questions, trans and non-binary lived realities, and the complex social transformations of the last two decades. These subjects matter. They are real, and they deserve attention. The issue isn\u2019t what<\/em> we are looking at; it\u2019s how<\/em> we often frame it: high theory, compressed language, institutional codes, and a tone that implies, If you don\u2019t already understand this, you are the problem.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the person on the diving board stays frozen. And in fear, many turn backwards \u2014 not because they are inherently cruel or ignorant, but because fear and humiliation are powerful forces. They walk down the ladder and move in a totally different direction. We see that direction clearly in politics: the hardening of left and right, the appetite for certainty, the rise of \u201csimple answers,\u201d the strengthening of ideological camps. And we feel echoes of it in the art world too: audiences drifting away, frustration with contemporary work, and the sense that much of what\u2019s presented is either inaccessible or relentlessly bleak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is where I start asking uncomfortable questions. Has contemporary art partly lost its audience \u2014 not because the audience is incapable, but because we stopped escorting people across the threshold? Because we confused speed with progress? Because we performed righteousness instead of building trust?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if that\u2019s even partly true, then the real question is this: how can contemporary art regain its momentum and bring people along without<\/em> becoming conservative entertainment \u2014 without turning into \u201cHoliday on Ice\u201d or safe botanical illustration as cultural comfort food?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Do we need a broader spectrum of topics?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I think yes. I listened recently to a podcast with a very young collector who spoke openly about his focus: climate and gender, almost exclusively. Again \u2014 those are vital. But if the collecting class narrows its appetite to a few \u201capproved\u201d themes, and institutions follow that appetite, then entire territories of human experience get sidelined: tenderness, aging, work, friendship, grief, eroticism (without sensationalism), parenthood, migration, disability, spiritual doubt, humour, embodiment, the ordinary, the domestic, the small ethical act, the desire for repair \u2014 and, not to forget, fun, joy, love, and hope. Not as escapism \u2014 as reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now, there\u2019s a huge emphasis on conceptual art that can be tough to enter unless wall texts do the heavy lifting. Often the work is aesthetically hard to digest, and the display language can feel like a scolding. I\u2019m thinking of the familiar setup: a visually thin object or sparse installation, and then a long, theory-dense text block that reads like an exam question. If you can\u2019t decode it, you feel stupid. If you do<\/em> decode it, you\u2019re often left with the feeling that the text was the artwork and the object was just the receipt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we already live inside a 24\/7 feed of crisis. Do we need art to repeat the same frequency \u2014 or do we need it to change the frequency?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not arguing for \u201cpretty\u201d art or denial. I\u2019m arguing for an additional mode: one that offers orientation, imagination, and agency \u2014 not just diagnosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do we need more positivity?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To be clear: positivity isn\u2019t the same as prettiness, and it certainly isn\u2019t the same as avoidance. And \u201cnegative\u201d isn\u2019t the same as \u201ccritical.\u201d Critique is necessary. The problem begins when critique becomes a single-note aesthetic: despair as the default posture, with the viewer positioned as either guilty or ignorant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are concrete examples of negativity<\/strong> that tend to push people away (and I include the art world\u2019s habits, not just the works):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Humiliation as pedagogy:<\/strong> the sense that the audience must \u201ccatch up\u201d or be morally suspect.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Didactic overload:<\/strong> wall texts that function like a gatekeeping exam rather than an invitation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Aesthetics of permanent disaster:<\/strong> endless ruins, scorched palettes, apocalyptic tone \u2014 the viewer leaves depleted, not activated.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Shock tactics without care:<\/strong> graphic spectacle used as proof of seriousness, with little space to process, breathe, or reflect.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Institutional coldness:<\/strong> exhibitions that feel like policy documents \u2014 correct, urgent, and emotionally sealed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Negativity without agency:<\/strong> problems presented with no implied route to response except despair or guilt.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    And here are examples of positivity<\/strong> that doesn\u2019t become na\u00efve, decorative, or conservative \u2014 positivity as strength, repair, and usable hope:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    • Repair as form:<\/strong> mending, stitching, rejoining, composting \u2014 not as metaphor only, but as a visual ethic.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Witness with dignity:<\/strong> portraying marginalised or exploited people as fully human, complex, and present \u2014 not as symbols or props.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Beauty as an entry point:<\/strong> sensual intelligence (material, colour, craft, rhythm) as a door that stays open.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Speculative futures:<\/strong> proposing what could be<\/em> \u2014 prototypes of imagination, not just portraits of collapse.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Participation with boundaries:<\/strong> clear invitations to listen, slow down, contribute \u2014 without forcing performance.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Joy with teeth:<\/strong> humour and warmth that puncture monumental seriousness without trivialising the stakes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Solutions as gestures:<\/strong> not \u201cfixing the world,\u201d but offering practices \u2014 care, mutual aid, attention, listening, small architectures of trust.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

      I also think we need \u201cpositivity\u201d in the very practical sense of leaving the viewer with some oxygen. Not a slogan. Not a fake happy ending. Just enough space to feel: I\u2019m not only being judged here \u2014 I\u2019m being met.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      And to be fair, some artists and curators are already doing exactly this \u2014 building genuine on-ramps without diluting complexity, and making work that holds critique and care in the same hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Do we need the return of craft?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      This brings me to craft \u2014 not as nostalgia, but as a missing bridge. Skill has been treated as suspicious in contemporary art, as if beauty, mastery, or material intelligence automatically equals conservatism. Yet craft is one of the most immediate forms of legibility we still have. It speaks a language many people understand without translation: time, labour, discipline, care. Before ideology, before theory, before the wall text \u2014 the hand and the material make contact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      A return of craft wouldn\u2019t mean a retreat into decoration or tradition for tradition\u2019s sake. It would mean taking making seriously again: letting material intelligence carry meaning, letting the work hold attention through presence, not only through explanation. Craft can carry difficult content without punishing the viewer. It can make the threshold less hostile. And it can rebuild trust: the audience senses devotion in the making, not just cleverness in the framing. Craft doesn\u2019t cancel conceptual thinking; it gives it a body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      From spectacle to personhood?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      There\u2019s another habit we need to examine: the conversion of pain into display. Trauma-objects \u2014 documents, artefacts, body-markers \u2014 can be powerful, but they can also slip into moral theatre. The viewer is shocked, then drained, and nothing changes except fatigue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      If we want to speak about forced labour, underpaid work, and social exclusion, we can do it without turning human lives into evidence files. We can make work that restores personhood. Not the saint\/victim template, not the \u201ccase study\u201d label \u2014 but people shown as people: with agency, humour, contradiction, tenderness, rage, dignity, and beauty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      And yes, sometimes that will still be uncomfortable. But discomfort is different from contempt. It\u2019s possible to disturb someone and<\/em> respect them at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Humanism as a bridge?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      This is where I land: we need a renewed humanism. Not the old, Eurocentric humanism that pretends \u201cthe human\u201d is neutral, but a contemporary one \u2014 an ethical framework recognisable across difference, grounded in dignity, relationality, and shared vulnerability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Because if contemporary art functions only as a distorted mirror \u2014 showing audiences how ugly we are \u2014 people will eventually look away. Shame is not sustainable fuel. What we need is for the mirror to become a window: not less honest, but more spacious. A window that still tells the truth, while also offering orientation. Possibility. Trust. A future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Where to from here?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      If liberalism is going to mean anything beyond speed and self-sabotage, it has to recover the capacity to escort<\/strong> \u2014 to bring people along without contempt. Contemporary art can help do that, but only if it stops confusing complexity with exclusion, and urgency with acceleration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The task isn\u2019t to become conservative. The task is to become legible without becoming simplistic<\/em> \u2014 and to make work that tells the truth while still leaving room to breathe. Not only \u201cLook how bad it is,\u201d but also: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Here is what care & joy looks like. Here is what the future can be. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      I\u2019m writing this in my own register: direct, image-led, a little impatient with pretence, and worried about what gets lost when culture accelerates faster than people can metabolise it. I don\u2019t want to simplify the issues we face, but I also don\u2019t want to keep rewarding a tone of permanent emergency that leaves audiences numb, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellipsis.pink\/phl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellipsis.pink\/phl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellipsis.pink\/phl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellipsis.pink\/phl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellipsis.pink\/phl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1337"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellipsis.pink\/phl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1380,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellipsis.pink\/phl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337\/revisions\/1380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellipsis.pink\/phl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellipsis.pink\/phl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellipsis.pink\/phl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellipsis.pink\/phl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}