The level of social relations is blended out of artistic production.

Interviewee: Roger Behrens

Structurally, what takes place on the social level is permanently blended out from artistic production. There is a separation between the idea and performance of artistic practice on the one hand, and real artistic production on the other. Artistic practice is something that I’ve learnt at the academy perhaps, something that is established in discourses or itself is a discourse, is canonised as a form of producing pictures, images, objects, situations and so on. But with this I’m not yet on the level of social production; in other words, it’s not yet clear as to how and with what I can pay the rent. This means that when I broach the issue of what I do as an artist, then I do so from a position that is already always in the artistic field – and very rarely do I speak about myself as a producer within social relations operating in the working area of “art”. It is very difficult to overcome the separation between artistic practice and artistic production, although it is in fact being permanently reproduced – and so experienced – by most who are artistically active. Ultimately, relations of production decide on financial availability and commitments – and not, abstractly, the artistic practice.