Shooting the ambulance? Debt, depression, and human strike in the art of Claire Fontaine

Mikkel Krause Frantzen

Shooting the ambulance? Debt, depression, and human strike in the art of Claire Fontaine

Institut for Kunst- og Kulturvidenskab

Abstract

In October 2016, the Fiscal Monitor of the IMF issued a report which stated that the global debt ‘is currently at an all-time high’. Both before and after the crisis of 2007–2008, the levels of debt have simply exploded. No wonder, then, that a lot of contemporary artists have responded to this unprecedented historical situation. In this article, I focus on the artist duo Claire Fontaine, through three key concepts: debt, depression, strike. First, I analyse the ways in which the artist intervenes in the disastrous debt situation in the southern part of the Euro zone. Second, I argue that Claire Fontaine is concerned with the psychopathological consequences of the debt economy, in particular with the political problem of depression. Last, I show how the work of Claire Fontaine anatomises depression not only as a passive symptom, but also a paradoxical form of active resistance to the neoliberal debt regime, ie as a human strike.

Originalsprog	Engelsk
Tidsskrift	Third Text
ISSN	0952-8822
Status	Udgivet - 3 maj 2020

Citationsformater

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AB - In October 2016, the Fiscal Monitor of the IMF issued a report which stated that the global debt ‘is currently at an all-time high’. Both before and after the crisis of 2007–2008, the levels of debt have simply exploded. No wonder, then, that a lot of contemporary artists have responded to this unprecedented historical situation. In this article, I focus on the artist duo Claire Fontaine, through three key concepts: debt, depression, strike. First, I analyse the ways in which the artist intervenes in the disastrous debt situation in the southern part of the Euro zone. Second, I argue that Claire Fontaine is concerned with the psychopathological consequences of the debt economy, in particular with the political problem of depression. Last, I show how the work of Claire Fontaine anatomises depression not only as a passive symptom, but also a paradoxical form of active resistance to the neoliberal debt regime, ie as a human strike.

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Shooting the ambulance? Debt, depression, and human strike in the art of Claire Fontaine

Abstract

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Citationsformater