Why Art? - Political Art/Art Activism

OSMOS Station, Dec. 14th, Stamford, NY

By John Halpern

Part 1 of 2

There are those who would have it that “all art is political” and those who would say “everything we do is a political act.” There are those that say “everyone is an artist,” (Originally attributed to German artist Joseph Beuys/co-founder of the European Green Party). And it is said that the historic “Siddhartha,” the first Buddha, said, “Everyone is a Buddha.”

Taking this apart requires layers of analytic deconstruction or contemplation. I’ll describe only a bit. I’ve interviewed over 100 artists, activists, spiritual teachers, celebrities and political activists around the world, delving into these topics.

In the 1970’s it became more frequent to see celebrities using their public personas to campaign for social, political and environmental causes or issues. George Harrison, a Beatle star, hosted Benefit Concert for Bangladesh, New York. Millions were raised from the concert album sales. Most Bangladeshi taxi drivers know about the concert from their grandparents. The campaign resulted in the liberation of now, a sovereign Bangladesh from then Pakistan.

A recent TUNING FORK LIVE program hosted film director Susanne Rostock about her film FOLLOWING HARRY, where Rostock followed Harry Belafonte’s human rights activism for 14 years prior to his death. Human rights was the chain of command in Belafonte’s entertainment career.

George Harrison and the musicians that joined the concert, like Dylan and Eric Clapton, were not politicizing their music. Some were creating politically motivated music in protest of social inequity, racism, etc. McCartney wrote the Black Bird song because of the discrimination he witnessed in the US, on tour in the 1960’s. Leonard Cohen wrote about apocalyptic realities and their sources.

Did we at those times think of this as “political art or activism?” Mostly we thought that that was what artists did. There was a perspective that “art can change your life.” Not the lives of the artists making it, but the lives of everyday people exposed to art.

Something has happened in our world.

Leonard Cohen’s prophetic song, The Future anticipated much of what we see happening in the world today. The lyrics, “You see a woman hangin upside down, her features covered by her fallen gown and all these lousy little poets coming round tryin to sound like Charlie Manson, and the white man dancin,” speaks of the degradation of human values, the exploitation of industry on the common person, of alienation and the ruin of our natural world.

So, maybe art is political, at least some art – but what is politics?

Surely the theatrical display of corporately sponsored, lobbied and financially motivated politicians cannot be real politics. It seems more like “entertainment politics,” not politics that is meant to serve the people.

Art that serves the people is “real politics.” Art inherently does serve people, whether it is self expressive or socially engaged, as much of the art today is.

Some art is made for the art industry. In the past Industrial Art referred to learning skills like welding or shop work at school. Why isn’t the “made for industry art” today not called Industrial Art? Would that erode the value of art made for the art industry? Would calling made for industry art “Industrial Art” be an act of political art – in criticism of the art market, the market that requires Art Stars and the inevitable competitive narcism and vanity of artists, collectors and art institutions from art schools to galleries to museums? I think that would be a real political statement. Don’t you?

And then there’s the topic of Art Politics, where in the process of trying to advance in the conventionally accepted “art world,” – to make it, we pathetic, corporately programmed and driven artists clamor and claw our way to success, climbing over the carcasses of fellow artists through nepotism, favoritism and selling our souls.

Mind you, this is not a condemnation. It is a simple and empathetic observation. It is analytic deconstruction and contemplation.

If “everyone is an artist” it requires that we take stock of the programming that divides you from me. The programing demands that I adhere to a self image, all the time, reifying my identity and using all the available resources to maximize my ego power to dominate daily life situations. To have concrete, fast opinions. To judge others when we disagree and to condemn myself when failing to take advantage. Where love is transactional, manipulated and performative.

Being a real “artist” requires that we free ourselves from this programing, change our inner lives, projections of our skewed realities and perceptions of the world.

OSMOS Station in Stamford is one of several outposts beyond the art industry here in rural New York State. Their current artist residency program (see photo) included a conference last weekend where local residents met with a collaborative group of artists, a lawyer, curator, an economist and others to devise or invent a legal contract protecting artists and engaging art collectors in a new economic paradigm. Their ongoing conversation is a collective contemplation requiring analysis of past economic models and scenarios that could impact creative process and the business and exchange of art.

NEWS: Diamond Hollow Books has reopened in Andes. It, like OSMOS is where art thrives.

In Part 2: the difference between activism and re-activism (or blindly reacting to an out of balance world while being oneself, out of balance)

OSMOS Info: www.Artsrec.org