The New Yorker Festival

"The latest issue of Texte zur Kunst focuses on Amerika (U.S. America principally): the land, the idea, and all that seems to come with it. What is Amerika today other than a contradiction between brute political reality and a largely fictional self-image, where fiction says as much about fact as “alternative facts” say about the truth? Within this contradiction, this issue tries to imagine modes of engaging with the current political machinery without opting for the one-dimensional dive into micropolitics that has plagued much recent activist discourse. The Trump regime has introduced a new form of politics whose tactics are closer to artistic practice—inventing parallel truths and questioning facts—than anything like traditional governance. As such, those familiar with art are in a unique position to offer an analysis of the specific forms that define contemporary politics in Amerika. We have thus commissioned artists and critics to come up with new strategies for analyzing the rampant barbarism, resisting the urge to sink into paralysis and defeat in the face of the endless onslaught."

How intriguing to read Texte Zur Kunst’s editorial note for its new “Amerika” issue (above) in light of the New Yorker Festival’s announcement that its editor, David Remnick, would be conducting an on-stage interview with “Trump regime” curator Steve Bannon. And then, just like that (that being social media’s ability to teleport ideas faster than any sit down festival), Remnick announces the cancellation of his on-stage interview in favour of a “more traditionally journalistic setting.” (Like what, on the phone? In a newsroom? Over lunch at OneDine?)

Was the New Yorker Festival right to cancel this event? Yes, because the event was never going to be a mere “exchange of ideas,” as advertised, but a spectacle animated by a militarized police force and a U.S. Customs-style pat-down of everyone entering the room. This is what terrifies me more than anything Bannon might have to say (we know what he will say, just as we know what Remnick will ask him). Yet another instance of the apparatus that, like Bannon’s hate and Remnick’s disgust, has everyone feeling even shittier than how they felt the day before.