It is not possible to produce any real critical discourse within the existing art system simply because most forms of resistance are so quickly converted into consumable forms. Marina Gržinić links this process to the notion of kidnapped creativity developed by Suely Rolnik, who describes how capitalism appropriates creative processes by separating them from their resistant capacity by “reiterating its alienation with respect to the life process that engendered it.”

If all goes well, the thirteenth edition of documenta will take place from June 9, 2012, to September 16, 2012. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, the newly appointed artistic director of documenta 13, might consider reading Oliver Marchart's latest book, which deals extensively with the last three editions of documenta: Hegemonie im Kunstfeld. Die documenta-Ausstellungen dX, D11, d12 und die Politik der Biennalisierung.

It is not only important but necessary to take a closer look at the inner logic and alternative trajectories of artistic evolution in China, irrespective of national, sociological, ideological, or financial attachments. To do this, one needs to dispense with the multitude of baffling and deceiving forms of recognition in this system that have become so dependent on a primitive art market. As an art system that doesn’t tolerate or support the nurturing of other structural alternatives, how can the establishment of academic authority acknowledge a greater variety of practices?

States which have acquired a large amount of social capital in the form of positive ties within networks of other states, non-governmental organizations, corporations, and other actors are more likely to be seen as legitimate and authoritative than those operating on their own, without many friends. In order to fully grasp the consequences of such a condition, we need to understand state branding in the context of globalization and look beyond soft power. We need to approach state branding, as it were, not from the position of the former sovereign ruler but from the vantage point of the networks that decide the standards of sociability. In the process of globalization, networks become social structures that tie parts of the world together, independent of sovereign borders and even independent of "international relations." While indeed, sovereign coercion may have become a thing of the past in this new situation, there may be structural coercion involved through the standards which networks adopt.

Concerning the contemporary utopian potential in art: this is a tough question. Let me first clarify that "utopian" is not in any way or at any moment an equivalent to "critical." Many projects can be "critical," but "utopian" implies a step further, it designates a much more comprehensive vision of the world as it should be. There are some projects that could be called "utopian," but they may be not very visual or visible, partly because they do not necessarily define themselves as art.

Furthermore, this shift enables Owens to tie art production to urban development—the (capitalist) production of space—to show how the emergence of an ever "new" art scene is always more complicit with processes of gentrification and marginalization than it is critical of such byproducts of urban renewal. In stark opposition to the alternative lifestyle and contestation of space they advertise, artists and "scenesters" are in fact essential to the post-Fordist turnover of obsolete industrial space from spaces of production to spaces of consumption.

The style and content of his programmatic statements—the ceaseless explanation of his art, the world, its problems, and their solutions—appear to be consistent with the image he projects of himself as a shamanistic healer: he speaks with the authority of a man who knows all the answers, and in doing so consolidates his auratic authority as an artist with his message of salvation. Orthodox interpretations of Beuys’ work accept this authority without reservations, and this makes a critical understanding of his work more difficult, if not impossible.