Potential is there in the sense of Kluge’s and Negt’s counter public sphere.

Interviewee: Gregory Sholette

Absolutely, I think the potential is there and I would go back to the work that Kluge and Negt present in their counter public sphere involving liberating potential of fantasy that is not constantly being instrumentalised or monetized for capitalist markets. This begs the question: why do people get involved into the arts in the first place? They have the desire to free themselves from something oppressive. That is, to get away, even for a brief moment, from structures that discipline them and their desires. So it seems to me that this is the key connection between the political and art, though it is only a potential and remains so in most instances. So I guess part of my project as an artist, organizer and writer is to say to other professional artists: do you remember why you became an artists, before you became so obsessed with the art world? Wasn’t it like many amateur artists desire to enjoy their work? And yes, maybe some of what they do, or most of what they do is very silly and formally conservative by your standards, but they are actually enjoying themselves. Are you? But it doesn’t mean that all art making is always pleasurable either. It can be hard work. And yet it’s the kind of “practice” that still brings pleasure. Something not typically found in the everyday world of labor, especially as so much of it in the post-industrial context veers towards relatively unskilled service jobs with low levels of personal satisfaction. Which is why this question of finding a loophole or way out of the system somehow, even if it is on a small scale, seems to me very important today.