This essay for the Journal of Visual Arts Practice. Vol 6, number 1 2007, examines the ethic of ‘institutional critique’ as a problem for arts ‘work’ vis-àvis the political by making links between institutional critique and a Hegelian inspired subjectivity. How are we  to understand the work of knowledge (critique) when recognizing either the possibility or the impossibility of absolute knowledge is not a required precursor for agency, but instead we are faced with knowledge without these grounds, as techne. This was also presented as a paper at the AAH conference Contents. Discontents. Malcontents: panel Institutional Critique as Institution, 2006, Leeds University,