“The key to commissioning is to respond to a need and that is what cultural policy lacks”.”

Interview with Francois Hers, founder of les Nouveaux Commandataires, by Daniela Medina.

At a round table with cake and coffee, François, Juan Pablo and I sit down. It is the third floor of a building on Avenue Trudaine in Paris. François welcomes us generously and is ready for us to begin the interview. The interview lasts three hours and is conducted in French.

Daniela: I would like to guide this conversation through three thematic blocks. If you like, we can start by discussing the socio-political potential of the Protocol, then we can discuss their functioning and the relevance of roles and, finally, we can discuss the Protocol in other contexts and temporalities. What was the process of developing the Protocol like?

François: I was born into a house of architecture professionals, where I had access to extensive archives of 20th century German, French, Belgian and Dutch art history. After getting to know all these references, I asked myself: what comes after Dadaism and Duchamp? What can I contribute? I had a Marxist upbringing and, like everyone around me, I was committed. We all wanted to make a revolution, but I wasn't the only artist around me. I was always obsessed with reflecting on form, form in art and also political forms, the search for the right form. That's partly how I came to Protocol. Thanks to my parents I was very sensitive to what was happening in the local art scene. The purpose of contemporary art had changed, the idea was no longer to entertain and I didn't want my freedom to be curtailed. I asked myself “what can I say” and “what can I do to integrate art into life? After a long time I understood that it is life that commissions me and it is art, not me, who decides. The question is to know what life asks for. That is the challenge.

“After a long time I understood that it is life that commissions me and it is art, not me, who decides. The question is to know what life asks of me. That is the challenge”.”

D: So, did you find the answer to your question?

F: When that year passed, I myself had great difficulty in accepting myself as an artist. Although I always liked being an interlocutor with the public, I found it difficult to accept that the starting point of my work was not me as an artist, but that I was someone else. From the moment I accepted this, I understood that this responsibility could be shared.

D: Can you elaborate on the emancipatory potential of the Protocol?

F: I believe that this is one of the great virtues of the Protocol: it is a possibility of emancipation. The Protocol is activated by citizens who emancipate themselves. The Protocol authorises you to do what you never even imagined you could do. There are commissions that allow you to play, so spaces open up. What I mean is that the Protocol sets clear rules that can be interpreted in different ways. If you don't want to play, no problem, but there is that possibility. When you produce a work there are many things to coordinate, from the most practical to the most bureaucratic, making a work in the public space is not simple. All these necessary actions and steps force you to commit yourself. Commitment is different from participation, that term that is so fashionable. Participation will never mean engagement.

D: Can you elaborate on that difference?

F: Participation means, voilà There is the artist and everything is done together, but it doesn't mean that you are responsible for the common action. Commitment implies responsibility and in commissions you are responsible for what happens. We're going to grade you, we're going to take into account how well the assignment goes and that changes everything. In other words, if you don't commit yourself, nothing happens.

D: In what ways does the Protocol activate the commitment and responsibility you mention?

F: It is the opportunity to react to public life, not just public space, but public life itself. Many of these processes allow a baker or a doctor to sit in the mayor's office of public space. It is the opportunity to become an actor in public life and the responsibility to make a work that will have its own life. That is why it is interesting.

D: How does Les Nouveaux Commanditaires differ from the relational art proposed by Nicolas Bourriaud, for example?

F: It is something different. Bourriaud has started from artists seeking social credibility and the radical difference is that the initiative comes from the artistic figure and not from the citizenry. I learnt this when I was doing performance many years ago, I realised that the public was participating but was not responsible. Under the Protocol, the comanditarias are responsible. The artists are not the ones who take the initiative, they are the ones who develop the work. It is a work that circulates in a circuit independent of the art market, biennials and festivals, it has other channels. Of course, it is necessary to offer them a figure of critical interlocution.

D: Since it is the citizens who commission a work, I interpret the Protocol as implying a certain redistribution of power and agency. Can you talk more about this aspect?

F: The key to commissioning is to respond to a need: that is the starting point and that is what cultural policy lacks, listening to real needs. Politics has a great function in art, it answers the question of how we can live together. An artist is the imperative figure of individual freedom. The voice of art is both a privileged and marginal voice, which is why we must listen to the voice of artists. In the art scene you are there to make, to serve. What you imagine can be realised.

D: What happens at the end of a project and can you talk a little bit about the effects after the project has been completed?

F: After the process there is a change. It is not the same person who starts and who finishes the process because along the way they learnt to express their ideas, to debate, they learnt to take risks and it worked. After a commission, other commissions are usually activated.

“Politics has a great function in art, it answers the question of how we can live together”.”

D: In that sense, do you see the Protocol as a social project?

F: For me it is not a social project at all. The Protocol has two purposes, the first is to produce a work and the second is to create society. We do both these days. By doing society I mean offering people the opportunity to exercise their right to autonomy and democracy, to create a space to say and to do. We do society also because it is an exemplary case of pre-democracy, especially in a context of democratic crisis where the faces of power are no longer credible. We don't know each other, but we meet because of our very personal conceptions and convictions. During the process we learn to negotiate, to accept and to be courageous together. It is an exercise in democracy. What allows society to say and do is you, artists and mediators, without you it cannot be done. And if society can be the agent, the one who executes it, it would become culture itself and, therefore, mediation would be culture. In that sense, our role is key in the revolution of democracy. One of the things I mentioned from the beginning is that we don't make art with the aim of generating a consensus, we make art so that each person exercises an idea of democracy, according to their own conceptions and ideals. We are here to manage tensions and conflicts. That's what makes it solid. We build consensus little by little.

D: So, is representative democracy in crisis because the citizenry is not an active actor?

F: Representative democracy is in crisis because it is too simplistic. You can't ask one person to control everything, the responsibility is too concentrated and they can't possibly respond to all the problems, they can't. Under the Protocol it is the citizen who decides what we do and why we do it. Under the Protocol it is the citizen who decides what we do and why we do it.

D: After 30 years, has the Protocol contributed to improving the mechanisms of democracy in France?

F: Not yet. The model is good, it has been tested in all contexts and situations. It is solid, it adapts and it works. We are currently challenged to move it from a phase of experimentation in a localised context, to a major public policy model. That battle is not yet won. Society changes slowly and it is difficult for people to change.

D: Do you think there are enough opportunities to discuss and reflect on the Protocol in the French context?

F: No, there is not enough debate. Everybody finds it interesting but the space has not been created. In Germany, Alexander Koch has contributed a lot to that.

D: Should the Protocol be included in public policy, and what implications and opportunities would there be under such a scenario?

F: Frankly, I don't know. At the moment the Minister of Culture doesn't want it to be. Even if it has been funded by private foundations like the Fondation de France, he sees it as an outdated model. The government and the administration are different things, it is important to recognise that the administration often opposes the minister and that, in the end, it is the administration that governs. In the hypothetical scenario in which the government accepts Les Nouveaux Commanditaires as a model of public policy, the key would be for the administration to also cede the role of mediation. The challenge is for the administration to delegate this to the public and for this project to be developed as a public service. That would be ideal for me: every museum should be associated with a mediation group and have public infrastructure so that its work becomes a public service. The funding of cultural policies is coming to an end. Different representatives of patronage have been actors in history, enabling artists to live and advance their work. In this way, they have been actors in the history of emancipation. Today, patrons are not part of the history of contemporary art. For two centuries now, only artists have the legitimacy to produce a work of art. Resistance often comes from the cultural milieu itself. I myself have told the museum's conservation department to go out and see works outside, that I help them, that I have a team. It is urgent to democratise culture. The work is very rich but it is always the same audience and that is not how we democratise culture. The only way to democratise it is for the citizens themselves to be the executors of that culture. Not only as consumers or spectators.

D: So like Joseph Beuys, do you believe that all people can be artists?

F: No, I don't believe in that. That everyone has a desire to create, yes, and that's fundamental, but that's something else. Art is the ability to consider a situation in ways that do not yet exist and have not existed before. It is the ability to dream before the world, it is a very deep desire. But the responsibility to create the forms has to do with a capacity and not everyone can take that risk.

D: Let's talk about roles within the Protocol - how flexible are they?

F: The key is that the responsibility of each actor is recognised and that each party plays its role. If you know your role, we can start a dialogue. It is because the rules are simple and clear and everyone knows their role that practice is free. If we start from the assumption that we do everything together, it will not be possible. The paradox of the new commanders is that the more legible the rules are, the freer one is and the more open one is to all interpretations.

D: How did the role of mediation come about? I ask because it is a very particular type of mediation.

F: I was the one who found that term in the nineties. It didn't exist in the art scene before. When I was looking for a term, I drew on existing references and thought: what is the name of the person who has the responsibility for theatre or opera? So I thought that the one who has the responsibility for making public works, between actors and actresses and chef de production, is a mediator. There are many ways to call this job, but by calling it ‘mediation’, it connotes certain things that I found interesting, like that you represent the interests of society. Now all museums have mediation profiles, but it's a different kind of mediation. Now everybody can be a mediator, it became a fashionable term. The most important thing about the Protocol is the people who take on this role and train them a little. It is essential that they know how to listen and create dialogues and that they can contribute from the competences of contemporary art. It is also key that they are producers, because the idea that emerges from this artist-commissioner collaboration must then be produced, that is to say, financing must be found, the money must be managed, the technique must be known... It is not an easy process.

D: What makes or has a good mediation figure?

F: First of all, human qualities. Knowing how to listen, paying attention, not taking their wishes as the main thing. Often, especially at the beginning, the mistake of the mediator is his or her desire to contribute to the assignment, which makes it difficult to match what has been asked for. This does not work, because the mediator does not decide autonomously, but together with the commissioning persons and the artist. It is important for the mediators to be ambitious and obstinate in their choice of the person who executes the work of art. In terms of mediation and dialogue, it is very important that the commissioners understand why they are making the commission and that they can reflect on what they really want. It is not an artist's job to explain what he or she is going to do or to say why he or she is doing it. Their responsibility is to find the form and, for this, the commission must be solicited conscientiously. I really like the mediators who come from the visual arts because they are often very open to different media and artistic possibilities, from plastic to audiovisual or theatrical, among others, which can help to facilitate the choice of an artist. Apart from this, political issues must be handled well. In the Protocol I talk about political mediation and the management of the commission through a mediator or a mayor or mayoress, for example. This is important because the commission depends on these decisions, on this power. If something is done in the public square, it is the one in charge, the one who decides whether or not to carry it out. If there are no resources, it can't be done, but I think that if the cause is a good one, you can find the funds. There are resources in society, it is a question of redistributing them. Here the mediating role is decisive. This figure is a diplomat, a producer, a very complete profile, the one who decides.

D: That's why I think it's interesting what Amanda Crabtree did at the University of Lille with specialised education to train mediators, because it's very specific work.

F: Amanda is the president of the association of mediators. They have set up a new partnership and a master's course to obtain an official diploma.

D: If you like, let's talk about the artistic role. Why does the Protocol determine that the artist must come from outside?

F: The choice of the artist is made on the basis of quality criteria; the fact that he or she is from the town that issues the commission does not imply that he or she will be chosen. If he or she is a good artist, he or she may be the person chosen. The responsibility of the mediators is to be demanding and rigorous with this type of decision. We are not here to do cultural animation.

D: Does Protocol takes art out of the white cube, does it also question the canons of contemporary art or does it replicate them in unusual spaces?

F: As an artist I think the current canon came out of that freedom we had after Duchamp and Dadaism, where we questioned all the conventions. We can't get out of the canon, but we can do everything within it. The white cube, the museum and the whole infrastructure of art today must remain. Outside of this, art has no meaning.

D: With regard to the issue of canon and “canonical” there are people who are good artists who are not yet established and this implies an opportunity to redistribute and broaden the frames of reference. Is this aspect important for the project?

F: Obviously in the official art scene there are people who appear and disappear, visibility is in movement. What is art or what is not art is defined by society, but it is true that this is the mediating task: to know how to distinguish who are intelligent artists, with imagination and the capacity for invention. This must be recognised.

D: In response to this question, Alexander Koch told me that the choice of established artists was in a way one of the positioning strategies of the Protocol, as this choice could make it easier to apply for funding..

F: Things are difficult for artists. The possibility is for those who create a work to emancipate themselves from the conditions that are imposed on them. The idea is not that his or her work should follow the commission to the letter, that would be an advertising work. But that he makes a work that has its own life, that crosses the circumstances and finds its autonomy. In the end, as an artist, he is the one who decides. So he should be able to negotiate with the canons and find a way to work outside of them, if he wants to. He shouldn't ask for permission or give explanations, that's not what we are in society for. I also understand that if as an artist you are against the system, you are out. The real question is how to include this in life and in society, and for society to have the capacity to transform itself.

D: Speaking of transformations, can you talk a little about how Protocol has evolved over the years, in France and in other contexts?

F: The Protocol has not been transformed. On the contrary, the rules of the game have shown their relevance and adaptability. Over the years, it has become clear that it can be applied in the context of Colombia, Cameroon and even in a small village in Germany. Here in France, after 30 years they stopped funding us, but nothing has changed.

D: That is impressive.

F: It is a work of conceptual art.

D: You argue that the Protocol can work in all contexts around the world. Do you think it would work even in a country that is under a totalitarian regime, or at war, for example?

F: The aim of the Protocol is that, through the exercise of their freedom and autonomy, citizens can become agents of transformation in their context. This depends on the possibilities of the context and the power that governs it. The question is to find the resources and avoid corruption. If there were war and weapons, it would be more difficult.

D: I would very much like to start a chapter on the Protocol in Colombia and South America...

F: The key is funding. You need a patronage figure to finance two stages of the project. In the first, you need funding for at least 2 to 4 years. The second phase of financing is the production phase, which is usually easier to manage. But the first phase is key because it is the mediation and definition of the project. Having achieved that, it is key to find and train mediators. It is advisable that they are people who already do art, who are open to it. They don't necessarily have to be well-known figures, but you should know who they are. Then you generate a structure.

D: The initial commission in Colombia revolves around water. Barichara is a town with a very particular geography and community that for more than 10 years has had problems with the management of drinking water. Due to deforestation driven by the construction of a tourist infrastructure, the hydrological balance has been lost. The government has tried to invest in better infrastructure, but due to various factors, these measures have not been effective. That is why we believe that it is through culture that, again, a tree can be given more value than a hotel, for example. The need is real and that motivates me to carry out the process.

F: The big challenge will be to interpret and translate the order. In some cases, this is not so obvious. You have to decide whether the work will be a performance, a film, a piece of plastic art, among others, and choose who can interpret that. It's an important job.

D: How do you see the future of the Protocol?

F: You are the future, as are the next generations. If I had the power over the Fondation de France I would tell you, here is the money for Colombia, but, unfortunately, I do not have that power. The future is you, who make the Protocol a reality. I have already found the funding for the first phase, now you have to find the funding for the second phase.

D: Are you satisfied with the inheritance you are leaving through the Protocol?

F: I believe that as a citizen I have fulfilled my role.

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