Market Forces: Claire Bishop on Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler at Fondazione Prada and Hannah Hurtzig at La Pelota, Milan.
In the context of her ongoing inquiry into research-based art, Claire Bishop recounts her experience at the Market for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge in December, “Milan and the Unpredictable” (Licence No. 13/2023):
I spoke first with a management consultant who deploys mosaic art to explain organizational complexity to his clients. I was intellectually underwhelmed. An hour later, I sat opposite a young trans stand-up comedian (the only one in Italy!), who presented himself as an expert on transitioning in Milan. Our tête-à-tête was candid and wide-ranging, as opposed to the opaque mystifications of the consultant, and better fulfilled the Market’s capacious approach to expertise. . . . By foregrounding a claim of usefulness, Hurtzig distracts from the fact that her Market flirts with excess. Each one is unique, requiring months of research, and the assembly of experts come together for one night only – a proportionality that flouts any rational logic of investment, in either effort or money.