How does the CAE fit into the history of left-identified, progressive political art?
Steve Kurtz: Sometimes comfortably and sometimes uncomfortably. Since some [progressive political art] seemed so issue-driven and party and movement affiliated, we tend not to fit all that well there. We like to keep our independence. I see us as being like an experimental wing, searching for new tools and ways of behaving, new kinds of situations we can create. Some of them work and some of them dont. Hopefully, when we are successful, other movements can pick them up and use them however they feel like it. So much [progressive political art] seemed separate from its theorization. Much in the way the Situationists were the first [to ask], How do you have real practice and work that is completely theorized at the same time? These two things work hand in hand. Often times this is not the case, you get the artist wanting to act, and the theorist wanting to think. Where does it get together? Because of the conflicts that often come of that rift, we just said, well take care of this in-hou
