LOY LUO SPACE

1. The Proposition of “To be Endorsed or not to be Endorsed” Within the system of contemporary art, “endorsement” functions as an implicit institutional logic. It not only constructs the order of the art world but also determines how an artist becomes visible. An artist is often recognized as such not through the intrinsic strength of their work, but through external naming, institutional certification, curatorial discourse, and media reiteration—together forming what may be called the “field endorsement” of the art system. In such a structure, legitimacy becomes the precondition for the existence of art. Art is no longer confirmed solely by the power of the work, but gains visibility through the collaboration of society, institutions, and capital. Pierre Bourdieu once described this as “the complicity of the field”—an invisible symbiosis among art, institutions, criticism, and the market. It ensures circulation but also constrains creative freedom. The system operates by using its powerful capacity for resource integration to shape the audience’s cognition, so that most people can only see through the eyes of the institution. Endorsement becomes the precondition of aesthetic judgment. Audiences learn to rely on the gaze of economy and authority, admiring those praised by the system while neglecting the value of independent creators. The anonymous experiments of famous artists serve as proof: once stripped of their names, judgment collapses instantly. Even spectators who believe they possess independent aesthetic judgment are influenced by the same mechanisms—their “free gaze” has also been cultivated by the system. Even so-called rebellion has been institutionalized, disciplined into postures fit for display and consumption. The “truly forward-looking viewer” is therefore almost a paradox, for foresight in judgment requires the existence of equally forward creation. Before such creation is recognized, even the artist needs time to understand themselves. Hence, truly avant-garde creation is destined to be an adventure. The artist must choose: to be endorsed by the existing system, or to await the future system that may one day be endorsed by them. These are entirely different trajectories of destiny, and require entirely different forms of courage. 2. Compatibility and Critique To Be Endorsed, or Not to Be Endorsed? does not propose a simple critique of the system, but reexamines the interdependent relationship between structure and existence. The notion of “nothingness” does not signify emptiness, but an act of self-endorsement—a proposal of legitimacy rooted in the artist’s inner structure of thought and spirit. Self-endorsement means that the artist establishes legitimacy through their own philosophy, consciousness, and creative logic. It may arise from individual thinking, from a new dialogue with space and environment, or from the reconstruction of cultural heritage and personal experience. In this sense, the artist regains the initiative of existence. External endorsement represents sociality and publicity, while internal endorsement becomes a manifestation of one’s self-philosophy. Through self-generated language, action, and thought, the artist rebuilds a system of credibility for art, transforming legitimacy from an externally granted authority into an inner spiritual order. Self-endorsement of true quality is not the enemy of the system—it is precisely the guarantee of its openness. Such internally generated creativity is the lifeblood that renews institutions. The system must remain open to those who self-endorse. Before maturity, artists should not rely solely on institutional routes. To spend excessive time and energy in socializing and flattery, merely to open the door of endorsement, is to trade the purity of creation for visible vanity. 3. Action Art and the Legitimacy of the Self Loy Luo’s theory of Action Art provides strong evidence for the legitimacy of self-endorsement. She defines her art as action, rather than object, and regards the artist not as a producer of works, but as the generator of occurrence itself. “Action Art” differs from the time-sliced nature of performance art. It integrates the pre-exhibition process, installation, on-site interaction, and post-exhibition continuation into a single living act. Spatial composition, writing labor, object arrangement, textual production, and real-world exchange together constitute a continuous organism. As Luo puts it: “Each of my exhibitions, every work, every act of writing—none of them stands alone. They are different dimensions of the same action. My temporal goals and gestures of life are themselves an Action Art work.” Under this vision, art is no longer the result of institutional recognition, but a continuously self-igniting mode of being. The artist’s practice becomes a vast project of self-endorsement, while the institution can only capture and define the most visible and polished fraction of that total activity. Moreover, Action Art is genuinely non-predefined creation. Its non-predefinition differs from Fluxus-like spontaneity or Zen-like instantaneity; it is a deeper dynamic generation. The artist becomes the nervous system connecting works, space, text, event, and environment. Any variable—shifts of time, change of site, viewer participation, or accidents—can alter the direction and outcome of the entire action. The artist must respond with absolute honesty rather than denial. Thus, honesty becomes the first principle of Action Art. It is not emotional confession, but a spiritual responsiveness to reality. When the world changes, the artist must change as well. Persistence is not stubbornness, but a conscious response to transformation. The artist resembles a keyboardist who plays upon the eighty-four tonal keys of the world; each touch is a moment of resonance with the universe. The truly great artist is one who remains lucid amid chaos and change. Those who reproduce the same face of art for decades are either the extremely steadfast saints or the spiritually barren tricksters who mask emptiness with symbolic repetition. Essentially, an artist who cannot evolve through honest, non-predefined self-development is a form of institutional opportunist. Action Art inherently unites two deep generative mechanisms—honesty and non-predefinition—which together form the ethical foundation of artistic existence. Artists who depend too heavily on institutional endorsement, out of collusion between fame and interest, cease to disclose their process, cease to renew expression, and are forced to maintain the brand image prescribed by institutions. Their refined “processes” become like rehearsed scripts. Such inauthentic modeling inevitably drains their primal energy and wild spiritual root. Therefore, regardless of whether they cooperate with the system, artists must retain their own citadel of self-endorsement—a personal energy field of creativity, a buffer zone between art and institution. It is precisely these independent, enduring domains that quietly sustain the renewal of the system itself. 4. Reflection on the System Is Not Anarchy It must be stressed that reflection on the system is not equivalent to rejecting it, nor to indulging in the romantic fantasy of anarchy. Loy Luo is consistently wary of pseudo-revolutionary gestures that treat “anti-institutionalism” as a posture of virtue. She opposes the populist slogan “everyone is an artist,” seeing in it a dangerous opportunism. Everyone has the right to create, but not everyone is a good artist—just as everyone can study mathematics, yet not everyone should demand a Nobel Prize. To confuse “everyone can make art” with “some can create great art” is to disregard the professional essence of art itself. The system exists to provide structural balance against chaos, to restrain the brutality of relativism, and to maintain a minimal consensus of beauty in the world. Rebellion against the system is thus not destruction, but renewal—a periodic self-correction of civilization itself. Through such critical cycles, the system becomes more contemporary, more inclusive, absorbing new creative forces into its body. Indeed, many historical “rebels”—Beuys, Warhol, Duchamp—were ultimately assimilated by the systems they once defied. Hence, while To Be Endorsed, or Not to Be Endorsed? borrows Hamlet’s phrasing—“To be, or not to be”—its dialectic is not one of life and death, but of two rhythms of existence: one seeking outward recognition, the other generating inwardly. The essential question is not whether the system exists, but whether the artist can open a space of freedom within it. By Loy Luo