(this post initially started as a draft for an essay about whether one felt political art made more of an impact in a ‘public art’ setting or in the context of an art gallery)
The video artist Bruce Nauman once said, ‘Art is a means to acquiring an investigative activity. I don’t know if you can necessarily change things in the broad sense. You can make yourself aware of the possibilities, it is important to do that.’
Yes, it’s ambiguous and a slightly innocuous statement at that, but also pretty much a similar, if not exactly the same stance I take when it comes to where I think how & why art & politics mix. And kind of how effective I feel it is in the long run…….
Because I would really give anything to say that it really matters where we display our political art.
I would give even more to say that it even matters that we do political art.
But as time goes on in this ‘hell realm’ (to reference one of the six realms once held in the Buddhist tradition), and a phrase that seems to be more and more apropos as the years go by under this current administration, I feel more and more that the argument of how/where we show this type of work is insignificant.
Which doesn’t mean that I am saying that we shouldn’t do it, but I am thinking we should think about who we are doing it for ?
When my friend Mike Estabrook asked me to be part of a group show called the Pavilion of the American Resistance last year, I said sure without hesitating.
But I forgot one major thing.
I am not a political artist/writer, which isn’t the same thing as being a political person.
Its just that for me there has always been a fine divide.
Being the writer of the group, I gravitated towards composing a manifesto because it came natural, but also because I thought if I was the note taker for all of our discussions, I might be able to gain some semblance of what I could possibly say for.
And of course, because this was a newly formed collective generating artistic/political provocation, there was a great deal of discussion and philosophical debate to cull text from.
We wrote an entire manifesto and made it the focal point of both of our shows.
In the text, there is the line, ‘A clean slate; we make all the wall whites with blue lines to give the impression of blank notepaper.’
So, in the installations at Parker’s Box and Buzzer 30, we laid out exactly that on the walls where people could add their own lines to the manifesto. In part, we were utilizing the gallery space or walls that we had been given to encourage the viewer to be a participant to express the “free speech” ideology.
But we were always aware that being that we were presenting within the realms of art spaces and the art world, we would in part, be ‘preaching to the masses’.
So, the challenge for us, which to be honest, we didn’t view as a challenge because we were simply thrilled to be allowed to be invited to have space (any kind of space) to express our gestation of a project.
But we were aware that we had to take that fact on and turn it on its ear.
We were all in agreement that the work of varying Interventionist actions was inspiring (ie: going into non-art realms and subverting a message into an everyday fabric) and is/was totally revolutionary and pro-active but we still had not come up with our own concept that worked within that vein.
We were also highly aware of the somewhat clichéd notion of the visual concept of the activist in art.
To be more specific, the image of a beautiful young person sweaty and angry in a state of complete vehemence which is symbolic but sadly formulaic after corporations like Benetton brought glamour to the tangled web of politics and fashion, which is where the line in our manifesto, “We are not sexy activists but we are still fun.” comes from, and admittedly, some in the collective did take umbrage at having to negate their own personal ’sexiness’ to align with the statement as a collective effort, but they did so with a smirk on their face.
With that, we decided to engage our audience by creating an atmosphere where they would feel invited to join or simply feel accepted.
So knowing that, we decided to build a “safe” party space where the audience could enjoy the space that they came into because of their adamant ideology and not a space where they had to go to so that they could forget for a few hours.
An important aspect of that was how we welcomed all art goers by asking everyone to get a membership card .
We would then ask the participant to ask us what kind of ‘monster’ they are, to accept how the majority might perceive this audience for their political belief, their sexual status, etc, and say ‘ I accept that’ but then make it personal and say, “Ok, in your eyes, I may be but this is what I believe’ and still wear their card (literally) on their sleeve.
In retrospect, I think we were aiming for a sort of ‘underground’ clubhouse space to dispel the notion of what a art happening has turned into but tried to impart a sense of solidarity in acknowledging our audience had similar feelings about the state of the government but that they could still love a good rock show and still want to drink and eat good food and just love beauty whenever and however they can find it.
I don’t have a definitive answer about what the best path/or what the best venue is in imparting this sort of message.
Initially, when the collective discussed dream locations, we really wanted to go to Texas.
For obvious reasons, it seemed like the most obvious way to stun an art audience on so-called ‘enemy territory’ and that filled our eyes with subversive delight but the realities of travel costs and having to fill out extensive applications as opposed to invitations from galleries in our own city without even having to tell them specifically what we wanted to do.
When I say that, I mean, is an art space better or more effective than subverting everyday culture ?
They all have their merits but all I can relate it to is when I worked a day job in mid-town and used to have a peace sign button on my backpack.
One day, a very business-like middle aged woman stopped me on the subway platform at 51st to tell me that she was really happy to see my button coming down the escalator to the subway.
I thanked her, (I didn’t really see the point in stopping to tell me that).
Then she continued saying, “ You’re really brave to wear that on your bag. Do you run into a lot of problems ?”
And I told her no, because spoiled me, grew up thinking I had the right to say whatever I wanted to say. That I had a right to my own opinions, blah blah blah……..
In retrospect, I am sort of surprised that I didn’t think she was some sort of Secret Service. Its not like I am not filled with some reservation.
I mean, why do I take that button off my bag when I fly on an airplane ( or my other particular favorite button, “Our Taxes, Their War) or when my friends from liberal academic families like to call me a hippie because they think they are so cool and antagonistic by feigning lack of knowledge of anything else besides their tiny, microscopic ’scenes’.
The public act of a peace sign button on the back of my backpack resonates.
My point in bringing this up is that we cannot scoff off any means of communication, which is what I really believe art to be.
Making art is simply a venue to communicate what is going on internally.
If it can make one person feel not so alone , where the work is presented, in either a gallery space or in public sphere, then it doesn’t really matter, as long as the artist is honest with their audience and their perspectives by being first honest with themselves.
