Tactics of Resistance

The Archive of Crisis and the 'Capacity to Do What One Cannot'

In different contexts of 'crisis', there has always been a discussion as to which mode of resistance to develop: legal, illegal or extra-legal. This article considers archival art as an alternative mode of artistic and curatorial 'resistance' to the challenges of today's crises that lead many people to utopian and 'out of law' withdrawals. It examines the particular paradigm of the work of the Greek artist Yota Ioannidou within a wider scope of contemporary archival and research-based art practices which aim to construct and articulate dispersed discourses, individuals and histories in dynamic structures of resistance. Notions of re-enactment, vicissitude, interpretation of law, performativity, parody, 'reversibility' and subversiveness are discussed as expanded artistic and resistance modes. The particular archives are presented as a radical form of conjunction of theory and praxis, as a 'lawful' (en loi) tactic of resistance and as an instituting practice. The specific (Greek) paradigm of Ioannidou's work suggests that one should consider the dynamic of aesthetic resistance within a trans- and intra-local mode, investing in the potentia of global democratic ideals

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09528822.2013.834578#.UmHVJNIvU7w

http://www.yotaioannidou.net