The Poor Space: Between Opacity and Irony
A conversation with American curator and art critic Steven Henry Madoff
On September 25 and 26, the Art Academy of Latvia hosted an international symposium, “Eastern European Curatorial Practices: Historical Development and Challenges,” which explored various curatorial practices and their development within the art and cultural ecosystem – in today’s political and social context. One of the international participants was Steven Henry Madoff, curator and art critic from the United States, the founding chair of the Masters in Curatorial Practice program at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
He began his presentation at the symposium by describing the current situation: “If this is the new era of artificial intelligence, it’s also the old era, or rather the renewed era, of authoritarianism. Where I come from, New York, the city has never felt more like a bubble in a country whose democracy has never felt more like a punching bag. If Americans are now being shocked on a daily basis by the new regime, we have a lot to learn from Eastern Europe, among other regions of the world, about what is coming, let alone what is here already, and how to respond”. From Steven Madoff’s point of view, one possible response lies in the concept of the poor space, which, in turn, builds upon Hito Steyerl’s idea of the poor image, proposed sixteen years ago in her essay “In Defence of the Poor Image”, published in e-flux journal. “At that time Steyerl proposed that globally circulated, continually copied and regenerated low-quality digital imagery, while technically degraded and dangerously instrumentalized, also has a high social quotient of democratizing influence, of upgraded mobility, and therefore stands as a political signifier and activator of an alternative political economy – at once low-resolution and high-potential for creative work in the face of hierarchical power”.
Reinterpreting this idea and adapting it to the current situation, Steven Henry Madoff proposed the concept of a curatorial strategy, poor space, that eludes direct interpretation and fixed definitions. “So, let me for a moment call it the poor space of curating, which has nothing to do with budgets or scale, but is a tactical approach to curatorial activity in today's stifling atmosphere, characterized by critical pressure and restrictions. Irony and cunning are the way of the poor space, something I know is familiar to an Eastern European artistic sensibility… An exhibition made with the strategy of the poor space decenters its subject, shifting authoritarian gravity.”
How, and in what ways, could the artistic dissident tactics of XX century in Eastern Europe prove important or useful in the United States of XXI century? This is what we discussed with Steven after the tour of the Survival Kit exhibition in Grīziņkalns. In search of a place to sit and talk, we ended up at the Zemitāne station. From time to time, our conversation was interrupted by trains arriving at the station, while people disembarking hurried off on their errands, blending into a typical Riga evening.
Ryan Gander. I Need Some Meaning I Can Memorise, (The Invisible Pull), 2012. A series of wind machines, hidden from the spectator, recirculate the air within the gallery to create a force that subtly pushes the visitor into an empty exhibition space. Dimensions variable. Exhibition view: Documenta 13, Kassel, 2012 © The artist / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022. Photo © Rosa Maria Rühling
You were speaking at the conference and you started with the concept of poor image. Why it was so meaningful for you?
Hito Steyerl wrote that piece in 2009 for e-flux journal. And, you know, at the time – that’s 16 years ago now – it seemed like she had a really fresh idea about the way this cascade of constant online images worked. As she puts it, these images were often low quality, low resolution, and in that sense, “poor” images became valuable in a different way.
If the value wasn’t in resolution – in making something sharp and clear – these images occupied an interesting space between democratizing images, making art accessible to everyone, and simultaneously opening the door to commercialization and commodification under late capitalism. That seemed like a very seductive concept. It occurred to me that generative AI takes that concept in a slightly different direction. What AI does is work with vast datasets that include everything – videos, images, text – and, in the case of generative image-making, it essentially diffuses all the qualities of many images together. The result is that it becomes hard to tell who actually made the image anymore.
You put in a prompt, and it generates three other things that do the same kind of transformation Hito was talking about. In other words, it’s not the same resolution – it’s not the same image anymore. The image has been shredded, in a sense. Authorship and ownership are undermined, which is a different kind of resolution that becomes low and democratized. It means that all images become, in a very specific way, the property of everyone. As Josef Beuys said, anyone can be an artist – and now, with AI and generative image-making, that idea is taken even further. You don’t need to know how to draw, photograph, or paint. You just put in a prompt – the thing in your imagination you want an image of – and it becomes visible. At the same time, we already know these AI capabilities can be dangerous. They can create fake images that damage someone’s reputation, generate political hallucinations, and have serious consequences for candidates or public figures.
So, at once, it’s democratizing, instrumentalized, and dangerous. At the same time, of course, all of these AI companies are ultimately not about liberating culture – they’re about commodification, about making money. In that sense, AI dramatically expands on what Hito Steyerl was already saying 16 years ago about the poor image. Now it’s the poor image reimagined in a way that is at once terrifying and endlessly generative. And that’s what interested me about it – though the images are often mundane. But I was also thinking about how, in the art world and beyond, everyone is hypnotized by AI right now. It’s everywhere – filling newspapers, websites, advertisements. A company can’t sell anything without including AI as part of their product, and so on.
Nonetheless, as I was saying in the talk, to me these things feel like distractions from the crises we’re all facing – whether it’s immigration, climate change, or authoritarianism. And of course, authoritarian regimes are using AI to exponentially increase surveillance. Take, for example, China, or companies like Palantir, being used by the US, Israel, and other countries. It now seems clear that these levels of surveillance, powered by AI, will spread globally. Even in democratic countries, tracking everyone to this extent is something we need to seriously consider. So, I thought that the idea of the democratized, low-resolution image could be updated as a spatial concept for curatorial work and as a rhetorical mode. Perhaps, as curators and artists, we can think about what the philosopher Édouard Glissant called opacity as a form of resistance. A low-resolution image is something you can’t fully see through. It’s not transparent; it’s not fully legible. And if it’s not fully legible, it can’t easily be captured or controlled by a government – the very government that might imprison you for what you’ve said or created.
In terms of curatorial practice, what I’m suggesting is that we can use this shift in perspective, this shift in transparency, to make exhibitions that are less easily controlled or censored. In the US, which is, of course, where I’m from and therefore where my concerns are most acute, we’re already seeing attacks on museums from the Trump administration, accusing them of ideological bias. Ironically, it’s the Trump government itself acting as the ideological hammer, striking cultural institutions.
So, what I’m saying is that maybe we can use this notion of opacity – or what Guy Debord of the Situationists called the dérive, the roundabout way of arriving at something rather than a straight, fully legible path – as a model for how we think about making exhibitions. It’s a way of working with artists who are also exploring these kinds of ideas.
“The large appearance of foxes in the inner city of Berlin is a starting point for thinking through the 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art as an investigation of fugitivity. The encounter with urban foxes has been described by poets as presencing, a spinning in place, delaying in the fox’s presence for a time. The mind encounters otherness, reacts without associative chains of thought—or prejudice. This encounter has less to do with the human identifying with the fox, but of entering a new sphere of equality with it.” Zasha Colah, Curator of the 13th Berlin Biennale.
If we look at it practically, what could this “poor space” be – non-transparent, unframed? What could be the subject of this poor space? What could exist inside it?
Well, for example, at the Berlin Biennale that just happened, Zasha Colah, the curator, used the metaphor of the foxes in Berlin’s urban landscape as a symbol of the fugitive. She was making a show that included artists who exist on the margins, not in the mainstream, as a way of speaking politically without being overtly political. I think that’s a clear example of this approach.
Similarly, I curated an exhibition about ten years ago at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art called Host & Guest. The implicit question of the show was: in Israel, who is the host and who is the guest? The exhibition explored the nuanced dynamics between hosts and guests, prompting viewers to reflect on identity, belonging, and the complexities of cultural exchange. The artists and works I included all engaged with metaphorical ways of thinking about this political situation.
For example, the group from India, Raqs Media Collective, did a project centered on translation – specifically, the translation of Israeli and Palestinian poetry. Their exploration delved into the complexities of how we translate and communicate across borders to foster understanding. This approach was not about making overt political statements but about engaging with the nuances of communication and interpretation.
It was a way of talking about this notion that came from Jacques Derrida, who inspired the thinking behind that show. You know, he wrote a book — called Of Hospitality, he invented a word, hostipitality, combining hostility and hospitality, because they both come from the same Indo-European root: host, guest, hospital, hospice, hostility. The notion of a hybrid or blurred border between host and guest, as Derrida described, suggests that sometimes the host can become the hostage of the guest. This happens when, in offering hospitality, the guest takes over your time or space in ways you didn’t anticipate. That dynamic of host and hostage clearly informed how we could think about the situation there.
Another example comes from Belgian curator Philippe Pirotte, who curated the last Busan Biennale just last year. The exhibition, titled Seeing in the Dark, explicitly referenced Édouard Glissant and the concept of opacity. It explored how we navigate and negotiate spaces so that what is significant isn’t fully visible, and so messages can pass without being exposed to the full glare of surveillance.
These examples, I think, illustrate ways that, as I was saying in my talk, one can work strategically or cunningly within constraints. It reminded me of a famous remark by the Irish novelist James Joyce. In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, his character Stephen Dedalus, who feels oppressed by the system, decides to leave, seeking freedom beyond restrictive structures. He says, “My work will be about silence, exile, and cunning.” This isn’t an exact quote, but that’s the gist of it. It’s not silence in the sense of being silenced by an oppressive regime. It’s a deliberate choice not to confront the system head-on. Instead, one addresses issues indirectly, through cunning, or by going elsewhere – into exile – in order to engage with the political situation that is constraining you.
I’m not claiming to have invented a new term here, but the idea of a “poor space” – a space where the resolution of meaning isn’t clear and messages are conveyed sideways, often with irony – feels relevant. Working with artists who think in this way could allow us to create exhibitions that evade the scrutiny or attack of authoritarian regimes. Also, at the end of my talk, I emphasized that I’m not suggesting this is the only way to address authoritarianism. Frontal approaches – protest, civil disobedience – are crucial and necessary. But the idea of this roundabout, indirect approach isn’t cowardice; it’s simply non-confrontational. It’s another way of engaging politically, and that’s what makes it interesting.
Lee Yanghee, Hail, 2020, 4-channel video, 6-channel audio, 15min. 46sec. Bussan Biennale, "Seeing in the Dark", 2024
It’s so strange that in New York, these have become actual strategies – strategies that artists in the ex-Soviet bloc were already using 40 or 50 years ago. As Andris Brinkmanis mentioned, for example, the Moscow Conceptualists were employing similar approaches.
Right. That’s why I was saying that Eastern Europe and the former Soviet bloc offer historical lessons for us. We’re now in a period of shock – something the United States has never really experienced in this way, at least since the 1920s. I talk to people from countries that have lived under authoritarianism, and they point out that Trump is simply accelerating steps to control the courts, undermine established laws, and attack free speech. He’s moving so fast that we don’t yet know how to respond.
That’s why I suggested we should really be looking at these parts of the world – or at Turkey under Erdogan, for example – to see what lessons we can learn. And yes, the Moscow Conceptualists provide an example, particularly in the irony implicit in their work. Irony is a great tool of this kind of reorientation of the attack.
But you were also mentioning today how the art in New York is reacting to what’s happening. From your point of view, it’s not that the scene is completely ignoring it, but perhaps it hasn’t been responding as quickly as it should.
Well, I think we see two things. On the one hand, unlike almost anywhere else – except maybe London or Paris – New York’s art world is so heavily driven by the market. Everything revolves around money. Artists coming out of art schools look at what’s successful and then make work they believe will find a place in the market.
When I was teaching at the Yale School of Art, which is considered one of the leading art schools in America, my students often had the attitude that, upon graduating – at 24 or so, after just two years – they would immediately become art stars, rich and famous. And in fact, many of them have. So that kind of commodification becomes a kind of bulwark.
It’s a kind of fortress, right? Because the Trump administration – Trump himself – is all about money and power. Of course I don’t have a crystal ball, but I don’t think the art system in the United States – in New York, in Los Angeles, and to a lesser degree in Chicago – will be directly impacted by being rounded up or shut down.
What we are already seeing, though, is pressure on the Smithsonian, the network of national museums. The Trump administration has directly targeted them, threatening to fire museum directors and cut funding. And they have already cut funding. The National Endowment for the Arts is relatively minor and has undergone cuts – since, in the U.S., museums raise most of their money from wealthy philanthropists – but still, government support plays a significant role.
All that money is disappearing, and now small institutions are in a very precarious position. What does that mean? Will they have to shut down? In other words, it’s not necessarily that the government is coming in and saying, “We’re shutting you down.” Instead, they’re using money as the lever. Without funding, these institutions can’t develop programming, can’t keep their doors open – or it’s much harder because it’s about raising the money from wealthy individuals and highly competitive foundation grants. And even larger institutions are beginning to feel the pressure.
It’s the same with universities. As you probably know, major institutions like Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia have already come under direct attack from the government. And as someone in New York said to me, if you think they won’t come after art schools, too, you’re completely mistaken. The program I founded – the curatorial program at the School of Visual Arts, which is a fairly large art school, has had around 4,500 students at its height of enrollment. But in the last year, enrollment has dropped by several hundred because it’s a very international school. Students from abroad are not coming because they're afraid to come. Or, at least, this is what has been surmised.
So, this is already an indirect way the Trump administration is harming art schools. And of course, like undergraduate colleges, art schools rely on students taking out loans to afford tuition. Those are federal loans – and the Trump administration could cut those as well.
So, you know, I don’t know what’s going to happen – how could I possibly know? But things are moving so fast, and the possibility of a collapse of democracy as we’ve known it feels increasingly real. In the context that interests us – our little world, which isn’t so little in New York, given the number of artists, galleries, art dealers, museums, and curators – we have to consider how we will react and respond. As I mentioned in my talk, if you look at all the autumn shows that have opened, it doesn’t feel like this issue is being addressed.
The major museum shows aren’t explicitly political, but they also aren’t what I’m calling “shows of the poor space.” For example, you have exhibitions like Hilma af Klint’s turn-of-the-century flower drawings and watercolors at the Museum of Modern Art – beautiful work, but not politically engaged. The gallery scene is similar: saleable art, pieces to hang in your home, large works likely to be bought by corporations and wealthy collectors. So, what does that mean? Does it suggest that the wave of authoritarian pressure hasn’t arrived yet, or that it won’t have a fundamental impact?
Even at my school – and it’s not just my school, it’s every school – having hundreds fewer international, imaginative students is a brain drain. It means less creative talent and fewer influences coming into New York to populate the city’s creative communities. And that’s powerful. That’s a very powerful thing.
The School of Visual Arts, New York
But who are these students of yours? What are they interested in? Which curatorial practices and fields do they focus on?
Well, I have a rather narrow view, because my program – ironically, at this moment – has always been devoted to social activism. The students who are accepted into the program are making work that deals with issues I’ve already mentioned: the immigration crisis, climate change, authoritarianism, and so on.
We’re just beginning to plan exhibitions for the year, and those shows are already shaping up to focus on these kinds of subjects. I can’t speak for other programs; I don’t really know about them. But historically, it’s often the case that in times of oppression, the creativity of artists accelerates, even explodes, because creative people tend to work against the grain.
And in that sense, it’s inspiring to make work, to address these issues, to break the rules. I cringe at the thought that things could become truly dystopian – that we might enter a period resembling a more sophisticated, less overtly violent form of Stalinism. Nobody is being sent off to a Gulag, but you don’t need to anymore. Surveillance and subtle forms of censorship, including self-censorship, can have profound effects on society. So will we need to develop 21st-century forms of Moscow Conceptualism – as Andris mentioned – or Dada-like strategies that blatantly declare, “We are destroying the old, we are dismantling the hierarchies of power”? I don’t know the answer to that.
But what was the reaction from your colleagues – curators, writers – to this idea of the “poor space”?
It’s still very fresh. Today, in the audience were only a small number of curators, but people seemed interested in the idea. We’ll see how it develops.
Because, of course, it’s not only a problem in the United States. This shift, in different forms, is happening almost everywhere.
So what did you think?
I think it could be the way. The only question is how the audience will interpret that kind of ambiguity. For this kind of work, for this kind of message, you need a very sophisticated audience – people who can comfortably navigate this roundabout path.
But you can see that whether it’s Dada, Moscow Conceptualism, or the Situationists, there’s now more than a hundred years of artistic practice exploring alternate routes through things. So, I don’t at all think it’s impossible that artists will continue making this kind of work, and that curators will base their exhibitions on it.
Sure. Thank you.
The full version of the talk by Steven Henry Madoff, in its essay form, has just been published in the The Curatorial.
