Regressive Reproduction and Throwaway Conscience

Kruger's work features a partially peeled banana between false teeth, symbolizing man's "money" (penis) and impotence.
The message implies male powerlessness and self-deception.

Holzer's "Survival Series" presents the paradox of self-interest versus tenderness.
Jonathan Culler describes this as a "deconstructive movement" where opposing ideas undermine each other, creating an undecidable dialectic.
This dialectic is inherent in our conceptual framework.

Haacke's exhibit displays an oil drum labeled "Mobil" with contrasting quotations:
- "We spent 102 million last year in advertising."
- "We just want to be heard."
The juxtaposition reveals Mobil's ulterior motive of profit, achieved through advertising and cultural program support.
Haacke suggests this support is not charity but ideological manipulation.

The art described makes moral claims and challenges the audience.
The question arises: How moral is this art, and what is the nature of its morality?

This art resembles the voice of conscience, revealing uncomfortable truths.
Kruger critiques male power, Holzer exposes emotional conditioning, and Haacke unveils corporate control.
They all employ "confrontational representation" with direct statements and deep psychological implications.
Their art invades personal space for emotional impact.

These artists act as prophets, protesting the world and raising awareness of our historical situation.
They display messianic traits, suggesting the arrival of the "fully human being" after a catastrophe.
Kruger warns men to repent, Holzer expresses ambivalence and aggression, and Haacke exposes manipulative forces.
They declare a moral or psychomoral mission.

These artists aim to change the world through artistic interpretation, aligning with Marx's thesis on Feuerbach.
They use art to reveal the mechanisms of social reality, empowering individuals to transform it.
Their art intends to enlighten and incite rebellion against enslavement.

It is the internalized voice of external authority (parents, state, public opinion, etc.).
It regulates conduct effectively because it is inescapable.
Its prescriptions are based on authority, not individual value judgments.

Social moralist art rebels against authoritarian conscience.
Holzer's work is a purging of internalized prescriptions.
The contradictory form of her statements is less important than their authoritative structure.
Kruger externalizes the authoritarian male in allegorical form.
Both artists put their authoritarian conscience on public display in a "show trial."
Their art is a ritual of self-humiliation, preventing them from being controlled by it again.
They seek to free others by externalizing the inner authoritarian voice.

Haacke's oil drum sculpture ironically monumentalizes social authority.
He uses the corporation's own words to condemn it.
Haacke's Reagan pieces depict him as a monstrous matinee idol, exploiting his emotional success.
Haacke resists internalizing Reagan's influence and the undertow of his popularity.
Reagan's power is primitive (pre-Oedipal), evoking the elemental power of the parent.
Haacke prevents authoritarian forms from becoming internalized and blinding us emotionally.

Rebellion against authoritarian conscience does not automatically imply a move toward autonomous conscience (humanistic conscience).

Social moralists know evil but lack a sense of good.
They have a throwaway conscience: anti-authoritarian but nonhumanistic.
Their art is reproductive rather than productive due to this incomplete conscience.
It uses reproductive representation for critical purposes but succumbs to its spirit of indifference.

Mechanical reproduction is the preferred method of art-making.
To inhabit it completely is to accept social manipulation of creativity.
Social moralist artists use commonplace methods critically but become manipulated.
They become a tic within the social machine, easily corrected.

The art of social moralists is parasitically dependent on reproductive representation.
They desire the power of widely distributed images.
They depend on the creativity of social authority (e.g., Reagan, Mobil) for their own creativity.
This dependence leads to an unconscious merger.

The subversive impact of social moralist art is neutralized by its dependence on reproduction techniques and authority images.
The shock is momentary and recognized as a product of the social machine.
It becomes just another minor "technological wonder."

Social moralists lack the imagination to generate an alternative to the System.
They don't remind it of its lack of humanistic conscience or generative creativity.

The profundity of social moralist art lies in its failure to implant a humanistic conscience.
The achievement of personal autonomy is inseparable from the achievement of the reality principle.
Social moralist art has an incomplete sense of reality due to its dependence on reproductive representation.

What is represented tends to lose its humanistic import and become "authoritarian."
The "Van Gogh by Toshiba" advertisement strips van Gogh's image of its humanistic import.
Reproductive representation denies the generative power of imagination.
Neo-moralist art falls short of its goal due to its distrust of the humanism of imagination.
Social moralist art has forfeited imaginative power, which is a form of humanistic conscience.