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Kenny and I 

I must confess a certain weakness for Kenny Schachter, a person with whom I had in the past legendary arguments where I accused him of being too much of an insider and became personal and he reciprocated with all sorts of insults of the same kind. Our projects, however, ended up being not that different, if looked in hindsight. Today, he uses the word punk to refer to his work and when publicly talked about mine is qualified in the same terms. I think that if we use certain categories that are appropriate from the point of view of art history,what we do should be considered as aesthetic and even artistic. Kenny feels more comfortable with objects, I recoil from them towards the inmaterial while he focusses on the market and I in academia. I believe in both cases what we do should be considered as aesthetic and even artistic, because we have found our set of resources in Situationism, Postmodernism and Relational Art. In other words and for different contexts, Kenny and I are very effective Tecnopolitical Conceptualists. I know that this is a term that Kenny, possibly wont like because of  its partisan implications but to me, what he does affects politics in a larger way.

The Performative Studies Take on a Doomed Art History Discipline 

In her recent book, Tecnopolitifcal Activisms: Performance-driven Constellations, Diana Taylor’s student and collaborator, Marcela Fuentes claims artistic status for the Argentine, later global, feminist pro-abortion movement #NiUnaMenos. She says that the fact that a group of people intentionally did the same thing (a virtual strike) online qualifies as performance (despite being physically present) and as form. My problem with Fuentes’ argument who never makes it explicit but suggested all the time, is that her claim of artistic status is not for aesthetics per se but for ethics. This is not new. Andrea Giunta, Nelly Richard and a generation of feminist art critics have stressed the same point what ended up depleting the idea of artistic quality. But I think it is time to move on and Fuentes helps us by taking the first steps and locating the source of artistic quality in intentionality. The problem and I would dare to say the danger of this is that her notion of intention refers exclusively to ethics which means that according to her some “good people” do art whatever they do or say and others do, well, what Kenny and I do: allegedly, ruminate in our resentment. Argentine feminism in its full circle where they through the historical trauma of being accused of witches, pass their trauma to oyhers.

Schachterian Politics 

Kenny Schachter is far from these debates but not quite. His artistic material is the art system and his intervention is a performative claim to be taken serious as an artist. No one could say he is not prepared. He studied economics, philosophy and art history at the top level. He has been in the art world for more than two decades. Probably the only thing he has not done is the Nineteenth Century Beaux Art training which, by the way, no one does today. But instead of being welcomed by the art world, he was snubbed. His point was proved as mine was with my cancellation. The problem with who I called, Technopolitical Conceptualists is that we can easily become one trick ponies in the sense that we have a cause celebre and that’s it. But mine has mutated to a performative existence in academia while Kenny’s with his NFT debate showed new worlds for art to possibly emerge and even new socialities such as the world of scientists, for example.

If you are interested in knowing more about him and his work before watching our interview, I think this one with Matt Medvedev is a marvellous enter to Kenny ‘s oeuvre. Go to

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