Sober room, black chairs and a white table. The speakers blend right in with their semi-formal outfits. Their stories and interactions are more colorful.
Charles Esche recaptures what was discussed in yesterday’s panel, how it went and what will be (one of the) subjects today. The three speakers today: Grant Watson, Dmitry Vilensky and Shepherd Steiner talk about the inheritance of communism. Or so it started out.

The first speaker is Grant Watson. Obediently he starts about an exposition of his, Communism, and tells how and why he set it up. “I created this exposition around six figures with six fictional stories. I did this to make the subject communism less abstract. We (the other curators) avoided nostalgia and did not want to look at political parties and activism.” Grant Watson calls the exposition ‘intergenerational’. “It’s not only about communism now, as the often believed opposite of democracy.”
From this point the panel strayed from the communistic point and went on to democracy. Art and democracy, how to define democracy and the speakers opinions about democracy. Grant Watson said before Shepherd Steiner started his view: “Democracy can be seen different, not as a state, but as a pure assembly.”

In between his spirited talk about close reading, Shepherd Steiner talks about democracy and his views on it. “Democracy is a multiplicity of languages. Democracy is a trope (motive) in art. Democracy is a dialectical system which needs more than two dimensions. It is not only about giving voice to minority and the majority being right, it is also about being allowed to say no.”
In Shepherd Steiners opinion art and democracy are, in same ways, both dialectical systems. “People should not import things into art, it already has enough languages and subjects of its own. The same with democracy. Both art and democracy also blossom by multiplicity and variety. Steer free from generation.” But he names also a difference. “Art is open for randomness, or it should be open to it. I do not know if randomness is a good option for democracy.” Shepherd Steiner says he still has got more to say but: “I’ll stop here”.

The last speaker Dmitry Vilensky, talking enthusiastic with a strong accent, backs away a little from democracy. “Liberal democracy is fake. A simple definition of democracy is the voice of the majority”, he says, “Communism is better without parties. We should just try to translate political experiences in cultural onces and vice versa.” He spends his further talk on two cases where art and history collide. One of his cases shows difference in political definition. Artist Hans Haacke was asked to make a piece for the German Reichstadt. They asked something for ‘the German people’. Hans Haacke made his piece for ‘all citizens of Germany’. Including those living there, but not having citizenship. With this, Dmitry Vilensky shows that there are more differences between art and politics (not only democracy) than being able to live with randomness.
Shepherd Steiner concludes: “Politics have become situational. It is in every context a different subject with different questions. Democracy is an umbrella for all those different contexts.” And very democraticly the three speakers and moderator Charles Esche agree with not everyone agreeing to that.