Chris Sharp (b. 1974, USA)
Theory of the Minor, 2017

Finally, someone who is interested to theorise idiosyncratic art as a “mode of making that is characterized by resistance not as a political position, but as a natural consequence of the practice itself”. (Sharp 2017, 225).

Unlike the major, which ratifies, reaffirms, and relies upon specific, already thoroughly codified linear, if dialectical, art historical traditions (…), the minor creates or unearths new or unexpected, if tangential, trajectories. (ibid., 227). When nobody looks, I am trying to move pretty much in that territory.

Then of course, I do find it somewhat problematic that he can’t help but speak of art as language – even if he is interested in idiosyncratic one (which should kind of negate the metaphor by itself – is it really a language if there is only one person who knows it?). It seems that he expects the minor to exhibit same – even if own – coherence as major, which for me is not a given at all. And he kind of laments rare visibility of minor in the major art arenas, which sounds also somewhat contradictory. Finally, that Sharp’s little sharp piece does not seem to offer anything that might enhance my practice, but it certainly offers one more pertinent reference I can point to when I need to defend myself against the major and its army.

References

Sharp, Chris. 2017. Theory of the Minor in Mousse 57. http://moussemagazine.it/product/mousse-57/