Arts & International Affairs: 2.3: Autumn/Winter 2017 | Page 27

ON PEDRO REYES’ THE PEOPLE’S UNITED
NATIONS (2013–2014)—OVERLAPS AND
DISJUNCTIONS BETWEEN CONTEMPORARY
ART AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
MAFALDA DÂMASO
Mafalda Dâmaso holds a PhD in Visual Culture from Goldsmiths, Uni-
versity of London. Dâmaso has lectured and worked for several Euro-
pean arts organisations and think tanks, namely as an expert in cultural
and foreign policy for the German Institute for Foreign Cultural Rela-
tions (Institutfürauslandsbeziehungen). Her research looks at the over-
laps between culture, international affairs and rhetoric. 
ABSTRACT
This article discusses The People’s United Nations (2013–2014), a perfor-
mance and exhibition by the artist Pedro Reyes. Its aim is to understand
to what extent artistic practices may constitute a means of critically
examining political narratives and hence harbour the potential for the
emergence of different forms of responsiveness vis-à-vis international
organisations such as the UN. In conversation with key references in po-
litical theory (such as Étienne Balibar) and aesthetics (such as Jacques
Rancière) as well as a number of related artistic projects, I argue that The
People’s United Nations (2013–2014), which referred to the structure of
the General Assembly as its main inspiration, highlighted the limits of
the rhetorical claims of the United Nations and the habitual position of
the viewer in relation to the organisation, i.e. her lack of involvement.
This stressed the hiatus between the UN’s official narrative and its mo-
dus operandi, foregrounding artistic practice as a possible mode of ac-
tivated viewership vis-à-vis this international organisation. At the same
time, the project’s inability to enact its suggestion of institutional reform
of the UN also underlined the productive dimension of the partial dis-
junction between art and international affairs.
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doi: 10.18278/aia.2.3.3