Politics in Modern Art - Essay Example

Politics in Modern Art Art is politics. -Plato It is far from axiomatic that periods of cultural and political ferment produce art effectively addressing that ferment. We can see the relationship of arts and politics in prominent works such as Kathe Kollwitz haunting pleas for the working class, Pablo Picasso’s brutal antiwar protests, and George Grosz’s venomous satire. These works appear to stand firm within the canon of modern art. In this form, art becomes more significant in the sense that it addresses reality at the same time it encourages people to think and act when faced with events that concern them, the society and their values. The link of the contemporary arts to politics in the United States started or gathered steam during the Vietnam War. This was a tumultuous period and New York’s avant-garde responded with what was known as the “aesthetics of silence.” Here, American many American artists found in Vietnam a symbol somewhat akin to an “ideal Other” that serve as a reference in their critic of modern America and its polity. Passion in California The artistic movement against the polity during the 1960s and 1970s is particularly high in California. Here, there is a striking confluence of political agitation and passionately engaged art. For example, the San Francisco Bay area took the lead role nationally with the foundation of the free speech movement in 1964.Then, the state gave birth to the Beat and hippie countercultures, which was responsible for many profound social change across the country. In writing about the contemporary art in America, Peter Selz, Susan Landauer (2006) observed: While the civil rights and peace movements grew simultaneously in cities nationwide, California played a significant role in their development. In their wake came the Chicano labor movement in the San Joaquin Valley, the revolutionary Black Panther Party in Oakland, as well as some of the most radical manifestations of gay liberation, Red Power, and environmental activism. All of these activities was accompanied by an outpouring of political art unmatched elsewhere in the United States. (p. 1) Recent commentary of the subject to date has been made by Richard Candida Smith’s Utopia and Dissent: Art, Poetry, and Politics in California (1995). Candida explored and examined the ideological , socioeconomic and historic roots of both political ferment of the recent times and its artistic expression. He pointed out that many of the values of liberty and dissent taken up by the New Left were first articulated by the community of artists and poets. This is particularly the case in regard to literature. Phil Beidler, a Vietnam veteran spoke of the literary arts in a conference about how art and politics are related. According to him: We truly can be transformed, and even possibly be redeemed by electing to write of times, of what happened – but also of what might have happened, what could have happened, what should have happened, and maybe also what can be kept from happening or what can be made to happen… Words are all we have. In the hands of brave and true artists… they may yet preserve us against the darkness. (cited in Lomperis & Pratt 1987, p. 86) The Conteporary Art Museums The relationship between arts and politics can also be underscored by the emergence of contemporary art museums. The role of museums has changed drastically over the past decades. Contemporary and modern art museums are more popular, more in step with the current academic and aesthetic fashions, and more responsive to the art market and the world and the times in general. It is important to note that museum audiences are students, the intelligentsia, and the upper classes. Thus, it became a powerful avenue for artists to voice out political points. For instance, in the chaotic period of the 1960s an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art was organized by the young African American staff curator Kynaston McShine. The exhibition, Information, was intended as a lively young international show about new communications technology, but given events of the Vietnam War, it became (with the curator’s blessing) a powerful political statement wherein several artists contributed pieces directly relating to the war. In this exhibition, Haacke created a visitor’s poll and ballot box on the question: “Would the fact that Governor Rockefeller has not denounced President Nixon’s Indochina policy be a reason for you not to vote for him in November?” (Ault 2002, p. 92) Critique Morality and art, write Peter Selz and Susan Landauer, are strange bedfellows; “to be explicit about politics was to court banality and naivete – or, put in more extreme terms, to run the risk of preaching in a fancy form. (p. 1) Much more, the spirited convergence of arts and politics seem to be quite splintering for an artist. Let us take the case of the artist, Michael Hall, as an example. Initially, he was an activist. He had drawn a band of young artists in Lexington in 1970. But as days progressed, he came to see politics as a distraction and that he eventually decided that it was incompatible with his commitments and that it was a sort of hard environment to stay artistic in. He said: Much of what I believed in politically was all taking place out there and yet the destructive aspect of it sort of ran against my sense as a preservationist. You can understand I’d have a hard time touching something myself. But on the other hand what was I doing in a studion, in a garret, thinking great art thoughts when there was a real world out there that was tugging at me pretty hard? (cited in Ardery 1998, p. 159) Conclusion As what has been outlined by this paper, mixing art and politics is inevitable. To produce art in the confines of a secluded and boxed environment may not be successful in the sense that it cannot be reflective of life and expressive of the reality wherein an patron’s inhibit. Addressing some issues that the audience can identify and understand is a fundamental element in an artist work. There is no artistic standard or rule that says an artist must refrain from using his art as a tool for political expression. Somehow, I can say that it is a social responsibility. However, as has been mentioned elsewhere in this paper, politics can be a distraction in artistic endeavors. Say, when all artistic creativity are wasted on the streets and that no long-term effects is being made or if it incites violence and chaos, it is tantamount to demeaning the art. The point here is that the use of art for political purposes is subjective to the artist. An artist, for instance, may say that his art thrives in the political environment, so we let him be. And if politics gets in the way, then it is imperative for the artist to refrain from it, otherwise he will, in essence, be corrupting the art or doing it a disservice. Bibliography Ardery, Julia. The Temptation: Edgar Tolson and the Genesis of Twentieth-century Folk Art. UNC Press, 1998. Ault, Julie. (2002). Alternative Art, New York, 1965-1985: A Cultural Politics Book for the Social Text Collective. University of Minnesota Press. Lomperis, Timothy and Pratt, John Clark. “Reading the Wind": : The Literature of the Vietnam War : an Interpretative Critique. Duke University Press, 1987. Selz, Peter and Landauer, Susan. Art of Engagement: Visual Politics in California and Beyond. University of California Press, 2006. Smith, Richard. Utopia and Dissent: Art, Poetry, and Politics in California. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995. Read More