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​Think Left​​


Chantal Mouffe stresses that a dominant, contemporary liberal thought advocates politics of a global​ consensus that had “replaced” allegedly conservative​​​ ​distinctions between ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​the political left and right. These pol​itical frontiers became​ blurred and undefined in the ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​contemporary world: liberal understandings of pluralism are based on the idea of the ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​possibility of a world in which many different perspectives, viewpoints and values can exist ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​in harmony, without conflicts. Based on its basic premises – rationalism and individualism – ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​the liberal thought advocates​ a possibility of a universal consensus that is based on the ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​“universal reason”; also, it negates all antagonisms among individuals – rational beings. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Given that an individual has become the only point of reference, the liberal thoughts exclude ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​deliberations of collective, political identifications. Processes of individualization “destroy” ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​all forms of collective identifications, therefore preventing any possibility for emergence of ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​collective consciousness. These theorizations advocate the idea of a post-political global ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​society, in which, after the destruction of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the bipolar ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​world, all antagonisms are overcome. In the “world” that has entered a new era – the era of ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​“second modernity” – individuals are“liberated” from all collective ties now perceived as ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​obsolete in developed Western societies. However, it is a paradox, when political frontiers ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​became blurred (and a distinction between the left and the right undefined), one witnesses the​​​​​​​​​​​ ​​​​​growth of other forms of collective identifications: nationalist, ethnic, religious.​​

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If the Hollywood Western is perceived as a myth, it is structured around binary oppositions (hero / society, outside society / inside society, good / bad, weak / strong, wilderness / civilization) and narrative structure – the progression of events and the resolution of conflicts. A viewer is usually presented with the hero that stands in opposition to a corrupt but strong society / civilization; as the story unfolds, he also becomes a protector of the weak collective body of that society that is threatened by the villains (individuals). The hero is, therefore, a “force” positioned against the presented / accepted model of society (the society is also the villain as all its menacing qualities are made visible) and ominous individual characters that endanger the people residing within that society / civilization.
Presented drawings / collages, based on the old Westerns film stills (and their new remakes) invoke the “myth” qualities of the genre that conceptualized American social beliefs and principles: America was (is) the country built for all “the people”. However, in the new dominant neoliberal world order, heroes have been long forgotten and there is nothing left to / for all the people. The missing heroes personify struggle for the collective “good” and collective interests that, not so long ago, “resided within” the Left.

The sculpture Think Left addresses this condition of the post-political global society in which the political Left is redefined and now almost undifferentiated from its Right adversary. The medical cast, taken from a left injured leg, is a metaphor of the present condition the political Left is in. The cast is transformed into a cowboy boot – the metaphor of the Western, dominant discourse which imposes itself through the hegemony of neoliberalism. The ”universality” of Western values is advocated as human progress; it presupposes global unity achieved through worldwide implementation of Western values, its  norms and its social system.

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