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I really think your question is pertinent, how art sheds light on philosophy and conversely how philosophy sheds light on an art practice. Do the two disciplines speak in parallel and never touch, or are there points of intersection where each can illuminate, provide models for, and critique the other? Yes, my answer is yes! through “Friendship” and by "Inventing my own terms".

"Friendship between Art and Philosophy"

My first response is: Friendship! Friendship between Art and Philosophy! Together, with my friend Marcus Steinweg, philosopher, we made a map: the "Map of Friendship between Art and Philosophy". With this map we wanted to make a visual statement of this friendship and work out – give form and assert why Art and Philosophy are linked together: Art and Philosophy are linked by a shared admiration and passion, not by influence, discussion, illustration, explication or justification, not by these static and hostile terms from which one cannot build a friendship. Friendship is or can be built by shared admiration for somebody and passion for something. Friendship between Art and Philosophy does not mean that the artist needs the philosopher to do his work, nor that the philosopher needs the artist to do his work, but it means that Philosophy and Art really share the same movement, the same dynamic, the same interrogations, the same problematic, the same headlessness, in order to accomplish the constitutive creative artistic act. This artistic act is assertion of a new truth. In Philosophy this truth is a new concept, and in Art this truth is a new form.

"Inventing my own terms"

Terms and notions are important, both in Philosophy and in Art. I completely agree with you when you point out – Philosophy provides a popular source of quotation and reference for artists, curators, historians and theorists writing about art. But my response is: I want to invent my own terms in Art! Philosophers use words with preciseness and exactitude. Following their logic, philosophers are sculpting concepts in the strongest way they can. The words they use are powerful and important tools in order to create new terms in Philosophy. Philosophers are inventing their own terms. I - as artist - admire that enormously. I can learn from Philosophy and from philosophers and try to use my own terms as well in relation to Art, in relation to my work and to myself as an artist. When people speak of “Community Art”, “Relational aesthetic”, “Engaged art”, “Political art”, “Participative art”, “Educational art” – these terms, all of them really – make no sense but I – as artist – have the possibility to invent my own terms, my own terms in Art. In the map “Friendship between Art and Philosophy” there are 10 terms which Marcus and I worked out together. The Friendship between Art and Philosophy means the total sharing of these 10 terms, in what we call "Unshared responsibility". "Unshared responsibility" is the adequate term for our relationship, both in work and friendship. "Unshared responsibility" means that each of us takes over - each one on his own - the entire responsibility of the work done. I take over the entire responsibility of the work contributed by Marcus and Marcus takes over the entire responsibility of the work contributed by me – this is friendship. Each one - without sharing - is entirely responsible for the work of the other. There is no sharing of responsibility. There is a "non-sharing" but there is responsibility. This implies confidence and generosity. This means to agree completely with the other. This means to agree completely with the production of the other. I agree with Marcus' production – completely, and Marcus agrees with my production – completely. Agreeing does not mean to approve but agreeing means to be responsible for. To be responsible for something you are not responsible of. This is what goes beyond criticism and negativity. This is movement and belief. In order to agree beyond anything, I need and Marcus needs to be sovereign. There is no space, no will and no temptation to neutralize the other. This is friendship. This is working in friendship.

Therefore the 10 terms of our map are equally important to both of us; there aren’t 5 terms for Philosophy and 5 for Art. All terms are essential terms for Marcus as a philosopher as well as for me as an artist. To share this makes me happy, this is friendship and we materialized it – together – in our “Map of Friendship between Art and Philosophy”. I will follow these 10 terms to answer your question as the artist, and remain faithful to our 10 Friendship-terms: 1. Love, 2. Assertion, 3. Headlessness, 4. Form, 5.Autonomy, 6. Universality, 7. War, 8. Courage, 9. Hope and 10. Resistance.

1. Love:

I love Philosophy and I love Spinoza, I love Gramsci, I love Foucault, I love Bataille, I love Deleuze, I love Nietzsche, I love Badiou, I love Sartre, I love Arendt. I need Philosophy for my life, to try to find answers to big questions such as “Love”, to name one of the most important ones. And for this, I need Philosophy – please believe it! I am passionate about Spinoza because reading “Ethics” had a real impact on me. I am passionate about Philosophy in general because I enjoy not understanding everything. I like the fact that in Philosophy, things remain to be understood and work still needs to be done. I – as artist – admire how great Philosophers are interested and committed toward other thinkers and how these Philosophers are the most able to explain with their own words the concepts of other Philosophers. Gilles Deleuze is truly an important Philosopher to me, he’s really the one who convinced me to start reading Spinoza. You have to know, Elisabeth, I am not a reader and I don’t pretend to be one. “Ethics” is overwhelming in form, logic and clarity. “Ethics” is a powerful attempt to fight obscurantism and idealism, and today, more than ever, we need to confront this. Reading Spinoza means: accepting to insist on receptivity and sensuality without the idea of a certain type of infinity. Spinoza presents a concept devoid of transcendence and devoid of immanence. It is the concept – as Deleuze shows – of Here and Now, the concept of Life – Life as a subject without God. An active subject, a subject of pleasure and leisure. A responsible, gay, happy, assertive subject. To do Artwork is only possible with Love. I love Mondrian, I love Nolde, I love Schwitters, I love Beuys, I love Warhol, I love Duchamp, I love Malevitch, I love Oppenheim.

2. Assertion:

In Art the assertion of form is essential. Only when I assert a form – even if it is against everyone and everything – am I constituting a work of art. A work of art is always an assertion and as an assertion, it is a gift. A challenging and unexpected gift. A gift which – by its generosity – blows off any thoughts of calculation and economization. I want to give everything, I want to understand the form of my work as a gift. But the gift is not the work itself – the gift is the actual doing it and doing it that way! What I love about the notion of “gift” is its offensive, demanding and even aggressive part, the part that provokes the Other to give more! It’s the part which implies a response, a real and active response to the gift. The gift - or work - must be a challenge, this is why “auto-destruction” is unthinkable. To me, “self-cancellation” is connected to narcissism, to tearfulness. Those terms are not related to my understanding of Art as an assertion, an absolute assertion of form, as an engagement, as a commitment to pay for, as a mission, as a never-ending conflict, as a strength and as a position. In my work I assert forms that cannot be asserted and this is – really – the assertion, this is the gift.

3. Headlessnes:

The term headless is – as well –completely shared by Art and Philosophy. Headless does not mean stupid, silly or without intelligence, headless does not mean to be ignorant, I am not an ignorant artist – because better not be ignorant, as artist! Of course – I love the beautiful book “The Ignorant Schoolmaster” of Jacques Rancière and its fantastic enlightening title, but I am not a schoolmaster – I don’t even teach Art – I am an artist! I am and want to be a headless artist. I want to act – always – in headlessness, it's something important to me. I want to make Art in headlessness. “Headlessness” stands for: doing my work in a rush and with precipitation. Other words for headlessness are: restlessness, insisting and insisting again heavily, acceleration, generosity, expenditure, energy (energy = yes! quality = no!), self-transgression, blindness and excess. I never want to economize myself and I know that – as the artist – I sometimes look stupid facing my own work, but I have to stand out for this ridiculousness. I want to rush through the wall, head first, I want to make a breakthrough, I want to cut a hole, or a window, into the reality of today.

4. Form:

The essential question in Art is the question of form. How can I give a form which creates a truth? How can I give a form - today, in my historical field - which creates, beyond historical facts and beyond the actuality of today, a universal truth? These are the essential questions to me, as artist. I don’t conceive my work as an outcome of philosophers’ concepts or of theory . I am not illustrating Philosophy with my work. I am not reading Philosophy to do my Artwork and I am not reading Philosophy to justify my work. Art is resistance, Art is resistance as such. Art - because it’s Art - resists facts, Art resists aesthetical, cultural, political habits. Art - in its resistance - is movement, intensity, belief, positiveness. This, I share with Marcus Steinweg. Pure philosophy is true, cruel, pitiless, philosophy that affirms, acts, creates. Philosophy is Art! The philosophy of Spinoza, of Nietzsche, of Deleuze, of Foucault is Art. I see the work of Foucault as Art - I see and can touch its resistance! It allows me to approach it, to seize it, to be active with it without understanding all of it. I don’t have to be a historian, a connoisseur or a specialist to confront works of art. I can seize the energy, the urgency, the necessity, the density of Michel Foucault’s work – as the work of other philosophers – it is charged. It’s a battery. I can take this charged battery. It is pure energy, the energy of a singular commitment. It is the commitment to make a work of art. It is the affirmation that the work of art is philosophy and that philosophy is a work of art. I want to make a work, a work of art! I want to become what I am. I want to become an artist! I want to appropriate what I am. I want to resist. This is my work as an artist.

It is crucial not to forget that an artwork can be something which does not function. (I do not say that Art has no function but Art does not have to function!) Today the question of functioning (“does it function? does it work? is it – then – a success or not?”) arises automatically and quickly as the criteria for “good” or “bad” art. This is stupid and easy.

Art is something which reaches us beyond such criteria. To believe in this power of Art is to me what “working politically” as an artist means, trying to resist in and with the work to the pressure of functionality. I am often surprised by effortless, inexact and empty terms or notions used in order to “explain” an artwork. . I have to invent my own terms and I want to insist with my own notions. I know – as artist – that to give form is the absolute necessity.

5. Autonomy:

Art is autonomous, Art is autonomous because – and just because – it's Art. Another word for autonomy is beauty or the absolute. To make it clear, I am not interested in 'autonomy' as self-sufficiency or self-enclosure. I am for autonomy as a self-erection or self-expenditure. There is a difference between self-expenditure, being cruel vis-à-vis my own work, not-economizing myself and what is called “self-cancellation” and “auto-destruction”. I want to undermine myself – my person – in doing my work – I do not want to undermine my work! I don’t want to take myself seriously in doing my work but I want to do and take my work seriously! I believe in the autonomy of my artwork, I believe, I think, I know that the autonomous in an artwork, is something that only can occur through grace. As artist, I know that I have to be touched by grace. I have to be open – and I have to do an open and confident work – in order to be touched by grace!

6. Universality:

Universality is constitutive to Art. It’s something very important to me. One can say that Art is universal because it’s Art. If it is not universal it is not Art, it’s something else. I do oppose the term “universality” to culture, tradition, identity, community, religion, obscurantism, globalization, internationalism, nationalism and regionalism. With my artwork – and not only with my works in public space – I experienced that universality is truly essential. There are other words for universality: The Real, The One World, the Other, Justice, Politics, Aesthetics, Truth, the “Non-exclusive audience” and Equality. I believe – yes, believe! – in equality. To me, equality is not a theory, it has to be achieved again and again, everyday and with each artwork. I believe that Art has the power of transformation. The power to transform each human being, each one, and equally without distinction. Yes – equality is the foundation and the condition of Art.

7. War:

As an artist I need to be a warrior. To be a warrior means to fight for something, not against something or somebody. I want to fight for my form. I want to develop it, I want to propose it and I want to defend it. It's war - but its not war against something or against somebody - its war for something and war for somebody. To be a warrior means not to complain if my form is not taken seriously or if it is criticized. To be a warrior means to be aware of all the obstacles which need to be overcome in order to assert my form. To be a warrior means to never complain about ignorance or adversity. But it means to fight, to work and to keep faith in my mission. To be a warrior means to be someone who has a mission, someone who wants something, who has pleasure and fun, who has the power and the energy to accomplish a mission. Perhaps an impossible mission – never mind – but the important is the mission. Each artwork is impossible. It is impossible because it’s just not necessary to do a possible artwork! An artwork is an impossible form and an impossible assertion and it’s impossible to defend. To me, doing an artwork is not: “impossible but necessary” but is: “impossible and necessary”. An artwork must possess both: “impossibility and necessity”. Don’t they, both together, make sense? Don’t they, both together, create density, charge and energy? Don’t “impossibility and necessity” – together – give beauty? A warrior – beyond impossibility - never gives up the search of beauty, that's why a real warrior has the advantage – already – to be fighting for something.

8. Courage:

In Art and Philosophy I need the courage to stand alone, the courage to be isolated, to be lonely. I am aware that the words ‘lonely’, ‘isolated’ and ‘alone’ can be interpreted as ‘romantic’ or against ‘the collective’ but it’s not the point because I am not against the collective. I am interested in the hardcore of a decided and assumed loneliness and an assumed personal position. There is one term very important to me - since years - it is the term "Precarity". My adherence to precarity comes from my life, from my experience, from what I love – from the precarious forms I love – and from what I understand of it. My adherence to this term does not come from books, philosophy, or theory. I am happy that philosophers and writers such as Judith Butler, Emmanuel Levinas, Hal Foster and Manuel Joseph among many others, have and are developing thoughts about “Precariousness” but I must tell you – my involvement comes from myself, I learnt it myself and there is not much more to learn. My tendency is even – I admit – to avoid going “deeper” – because I need, yes I need, my own, my own strange, wrong, headless misunderstood, bad, stupid – but – my fucking own relation to preserve and develop. This is not against theory or a refusal of theory, absolutely not, this is being open to what comes from myself, to what comes only from my own: I'm the only one to see it and to understand it like this, only I can do it, only I take it seriously, only I have the courage to give it a form.

9. Hope:

I hope, I dream, I want to act and I want things to change. That is why I read Philosophy. I am not interested in reading writers, philosophers, thinkers, as an artist. I am interested in them as human beings. I don’t use their work for my work. I read it to try to stay alert, to keep my thoughts active. To read their writings keeps my brain working, that’s why I do it. With his essay "La notion de dépense" Bataille opens a field of strength. Loss is not destruction but loss is a form to impose an economical balance based on human activity and not on capitalism. Bataille said there must be structure, there must be excess. Hope as a principle for taking action, for moving and going straight ahead. Hope does not mean “hopeful for something or “hopefully something will happen”. Hope means hope as real Hope. To breathe – every second - is the physical translation of the Hope I mean.

10. Resistance:

Art is resistance, Art is resistance as such. Art - because it’s Art - resists facts, Art resists aesthetical, cultural, political habits. Art - in its resistance - is movement, intensity, belief, positiveness. This, I share with Marcus Steinweg. Pure philosophy is true, cruel, pitiless, philosophy that affirms, acts, creates. Philosophy is Art! The philosophy of Spinoza, of Nietzsche, of Deleuze, of Foucault is Art. I see the work of Foucault as Art - I see and can touch its resistance! It allows me to approach it, to seize it, to be active with it without understanding all of it. I don’t have to be a historian, a connoisseur or a specialist to confront works of art. I can seize the energy, the urgency, the necessity, the density of Michel Foucault’s work – as the work of other philosophers – it is charged. It’s a battery. I can take this charged battery. It is pure energy, the energy of a singular commitment. It is the commitment to make a work of art. It is the affirmation that the work of art is philosophy and that philosophy is a work of art. I want to make a work, a work of art! I want to become what I am. I want to become an artist! I want to appropriate what I am. I want to resist. This is my work as an artist.

I hope my answers can give enlightenment - from my side, the artist side - towards your concerns,

take care - take care,

Thomas, Aubervilliers, 1. December 2010

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