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Published on Thursday, December 10, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Artists: Raise Your Weapons
In this time of escalating exploitation, poverty, imperialist wars,
torture and ecocide, we don’t need a piece of art that consists of a
mattress dripping orange paint, cleverly titled “Tangerine Dream.” In this
time, as countless multitudes suffer and die for the profits and luxuries
of a few, as species go extinct at a rate faster than we can keep track
of, we don’t need an orchestra composed of iPhones. In this time, when the
future of all life on Earth is at stake, spare us the constant barrage of
narcissistic tweets juxtaposing celeb gossip with quirky food choices.
If we lived in a time of peace and harmony, then creating pretty, escapist, seratonin-boosting hits of mild amusement wouldn’t be a crime (except perhaps against one’s Muse). If all was well, such art might enhance our happy existence, like whipped cream on a chocolate latte. There’s nothing wrong with pleasure, or decorative art.
But in times like these, for an artist not to devote her/his talents and energies to creating cultural weapons of resistance is a betrayal of the worst magnitude, a gesture of contempt against life itself. It is unforgivable.
The foundation of any culture is its underlying economic system. Today, art is bullied to conform to the demands of industrial capitalism, to reflect and reinforce the interests of those in power. This system-serving art is relentlessly bland. It is viciously soothing, crushingly safe. It seduces us to desire, buy, use, consume. It entertains us and makes us giggle with faux joy as it slowly sucks our brains out through our eye sockets.
The system exerts tremendous pressure to create art that is not only apolitical but anti-political. When the dominant culture spots political art, it sticks its fingers in its ears and sings, “La la la!” It refuses to review it in the New York Times or award it an NEA grant. Political art is vigorously snubbed, ignored, condemned to obscurity, erased. If it’s too powerful to make disappear, then it is scorned, accused of being depressing, doom-and-gloom, preachy, impolite, and by the way, your drawing style sucks. Also by the way, you can’t make a living if your work’s not vacuous, cynical and therefore commercially viable, so go starve under a bridge with your precious principles.
We’re taught that it’s rude to be judgmental, that to assert a point of view violates the pure, transcendent and neutral spirit of art. This is mind-fucking bullshit designed to weaken and depoliticize us. In these times, there is no such thing as neutrality -- not taking a stand means supporting and assisting exploiters and murderers.
Let us not be the system’s tools or fools. Artists are not cowards and weaklings -- we’re tough. We take sides. We fight back.
Artists and writers have a proud tradition of being at the forefront of resistance, of stirring emotions and inspiring action. Today we must create an onslaught of judgmental, opinionated, brash and partisan work in the tradition of anti-Nazi artists John Heartfield and George Grosz, of radical muralist Diego Rivera, filmmaker Ousmane Sembčne, feminist artists the Guerrilla Girls, novelists like Maxim Gorky and Taslima Nasrin, poets like Nazim Hikmet and Kazi Nazrul Islam, musicians like The Coup and the Dead Kennedys.
The world cries out for meaningful, combative, political art. It is our duty and responsibility to create a fierce, unyielding, aggressive culture of resistance. We must create art that exposes and denounces evil, that strengthens activists and revolutionaries, celebrates and contributes to the coming liberation of this planet from corporate industrial military omnicidal madness.
Pick up your weapon, artist.
If we lived in a time of peace and harmony, then creating pretty, escapist, seratonin-boosting hits of mild amusement wouldn’t be a crime (except perhaps against one’s Muse). If all was well, such art might enhance our happy existence, like whipped cream on a chocolate latte. There’s nothing wrong with pleasure, or decorative art.
But in times like these, for an artist not to devote her/his talents and energies to creating cultural weapons of resistance is a betrayal of the worst magnitude, a gesture of contempt against life itself. It is unforgivable.
The foundation of any culture is its underlying economic system. Today, art is bullied to conform to the demands of industrial capitalism, to reflect and reinforce the interests of those in power. This system-serving art is relentlessly bland. It is viciously soothing, crushingly safe. It seduces us to desire, buy, use, consume. It entertains us and makes us giggle with faux joy as it slowly sucks our brains out through our eye sockets.
The system exerts tremendous pressure to create art that is not only apolitical but anti-political. When the dominant culture spots political art, it sticks its fingers in its ears and sings, “La la la!” It refuses to review it in the New York Times or award it an NEA grant. Political art is vigorously snubbed, ignored, condemned to obscurity, erased. If it’s too powerful to make disappear, then it is scorned, accused of being depressing, doom-and-gloom, preachy, impolite, and by the way, your drawing style sucks. Also by the way, you can’t make a living if your work’s not vacuous, cynical and therefore commercially viable, so go starve under a bridge with your precious principles.
We’re taught that it’s rude to be judgmental, that to assert a point of view violates the pure, transcendent and neutral spirit of art. This is mind-fucking bullshit designed to weaken and depoliticize us. In these times, there is no such thing as neutrality -- not taking a stand means supporting and assisting exploiters and murderers.
Let us not be the system’s tools or fools. Artists are not cowards and weaklings -- we’re tough. We take sides. We fight back.
Artists and writers have a proud tradition of being at the forefront of resistance, of stirring emotions and inspiring action. Today we must create an onslaught of judgmental, opinionated, brash and partisan work in the tradition of anti-Nazi artists John Heartfield and George Grosz, of radical muralist Diego Rivera, filmmaker Ousmane Sembčne, feminist artists the Guerrilla Girls, novelists like Maxim Gorky and Taslima Nasrin, poets like Nazim Hikmet and Kazi Nazrul Islam, musicians like The Coup and the Dead Kennedys.
The world cries out for meaningful, combative, political art. It is our duty and responsibility to create a fierce, unyielding, aggressive culture of resistance. We must create art that exposes and denounces evil, that strengthens activists and revolutionaries, celebrates and contributes to the coming liberation of this planet from corporate industrial military omnicidal madness.
Pick up your weapon, artist.
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50 Comments so far
Show AllWell said, Steph! As a life-long Musical Artist, I couldn't agree more. Simply compare the music of the 60's with the music now - end of discussion.
Actually no, definitely not with that trite comment. When you think about the music of the sixties, one also needs to think about the music industry of the sixties. It was an open minded forum where the industry had not yet controlled the music. Those musical icons were not being boxed and sold, molded an shaped by the industry o the industry's desires. Many in the industry were just getting their breaks by finding those outspoken artists with talent because that's what sold. Today's music industry is a different place. A place that no outspoken artist bothers to try to record through anymore. But to say that today's music isn't what it used to be is obviously and painfully stuck on prepackaged industry hyped recordings, so here are a few suggestions for good art, produced independently:
Wookiefoot: Out of the Jar (peace, love, dance, and question everything implementing just about every style of music in the world, strongly recommended by those who long to dance in the light)
Gorillaz: Demon Days (you may have heard bits and pieces, but the album title speaks well for the content of the concept and is worth a full listening.)
Low: The Great Destroyer
MIA: Kala
Atmosphere: When Life gives you Lemons
Anything by Matis Yahu - A Jewish rapper pissed off about war
Le Tigre
Ani Difranco - duh
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Lyre of Orpheus (strongly recommended by most with a darker nature or a strong fix on sixties style music but with a darker edge)
Tom Waits' last album was strong on US policy as was Joan Jett's most recent album (yea shocked the hell out of me too)
Art brute (for some silly punk that makes a point of making a charicature of society by being charicatures of themselves.)
There are many more I can list, but that's a good start, because once you find a song you like in here, you can go to www.pandora.com put in a song, and here dozens more like it. It is a website dedicated to introducing you to new music. Heck, you could even put in something like Dylan and get some new stuff that would suit your tired of industry music needs. Just a suggestion, the new generation can't use the industry, it's just changing it. That said, you have to find the music now a days, it doesn't just show up at your door. One good recommendation for music if you must be spoon fed, www.thecurrent.org and listen to their broadcast online. Do those steps with some consideration towards the messages the artists are conveying, THEN tell me end of discussion. Although I'd be willing to guess it would just open new discussions about music.
while some artists from the 60s were incredible (I am going to attempt to refrain from listing), it is important to note things like a Grace Slick comment that implied the entire White Rabbit album was a deliberate attempt, not to explore or expand the counterculture of the time, but to exploit it...
any popular movement is ripe for exploitation, and to credit anything associated with sincerity may be self-deluding...
also, even though I write a bunch of great songs, myself, and am aware of many others written by much more famous people, I think the logical conclusion would have to be that art, like speech, only goes so far...
it doesn't get much more blunt or beautiful than John Lennon's Imagine, and what major changes has that incredible piece of work accomplished? I know I said I wasn't going to do this, but when you already have Marley, and Hendrix, and Mitchell, and Dylan, and the Beatles, and Guthrie, and fill-in-the-blank, what are you waiting to hear said that hasn't already been said?
Art is wonderful, but art will not save this world...unless you count the act of living harmoniously within the larger, living world as art...that would, indeed, make a difference...
"...unless you count the act of living harmoniously within the lager, living world as art.." Let's start there because my life is an art project anyway. "what are you waiting to hear said that hasn't already been said?" I'm not waiting for that, I'm already listening to it. I don't ask that art change the world, I argue that art influences others to change it, and that there are always new avenues to explore. All said, there are plenty of independent artists, a few of whom I mentioned who are not Grace Slick, or Marley, and Hendrix, and Mitchell, and Dylan, and the Beatles, and Guthrie, all of whom anyone in the world has listened to many if not all of their libraries at some point in their lives. Many of those independent artists aren't exploited or exploiting, therefore, yes, they can and do say things that haven't been said before. Moreover, they do things that he previous haven't done before, like travel to other countries and help build homes for people and such. Work in the muck and the dirt, and it's incredibly cleansing for one's being.
mystic pirate says:
"Work in the muck and the dirt, and it's incredibly cleansing for one's being."
Absolutely...that, I agree with wholeheartedly...
Two capacities I see art as having: The power to show you your reality in a way that moves you to understand it and to do something about it, without giving you an instant case of PTSD. The second capacity is to create the mythology of how we could live, to move us to create a reality to live up to the myths portrayed in the art.
"it doesn't get much more blunt or beautiful than John Lennon's Imagine, and what major changes has that incredible piece of work accomplished?"
It's a good question. You're aiming to imply that the song accomplished nothing, but if you think about it, it's as as impossible to know as the future. It very well could be that the song, along with a mix of other stimuli, created just enough peace to stop another McVey from say, blowing up something even bigger, and setting off a new civil war in the USA. If you take all of the peaceful energy released by all of the peaceful people on the planet, you have a great wall of peace that separates the warmongers from an even bigger prize. The warmongers face many obstacles today that never get any attention. That we lose sight of them is not by accident. Acts of peace are downplayed in the elite media.
hey, rtdrury!
i appreciate your view...the unknown positive effects may, indeed, be a source of great hope...i just want to be sure we do not blind ourselves to the fact that our world is violently maintained, and that those that utilize violence regularly prevail over those that do not...
i love art...i love peace...but there are some very cold-blooded bad asses at work around here...
Sorry, cart before horse. "The world cries out for political art." No twice.
At St. James Infirmary
I saw her laying there,
So pale. So cold. So fair,
Art? Airbrushed porn?
Read? Kiss me. Tom Wolff, Elmore Leanord, The Loop by the Horse Whisperer guy, Antietam whoah...,Paul-Corinthians, Stallion's Gate,
Hurricane, Tangled up in blue, Sister Morpine,
in my basement room,
with a needle, w/ a spoon,
makin Love on Ken-tucky Derby Day.
My empathy to this writer curded with soul.
Swap it for an m-16, cause happiness is warm gun,
Yes it is.....
"happiness is warm gun,"
I don't think the two - arming ones self physically and symbolically - are mutually exclusive. I know plenty of artists who are carrying, or at least have trained up on sef defense - both firearms and martial arts. I wouldn't be too surprised if the author here is one of those types.
I don't even understand what the heck you are saying here, azjoe. Could you maybe, like Stephanie McMillan did, by the way, say what you really mean so you can be really engaged?
Agreed, Steph. The failure of this world is the failure of artists. Greed and Cowardice reign. Insofar as VVV's comment- "compare the music of 60's..." is conservatism at its best. hearken back to the good ol' days...it is the music/the artists of the 60's that willfully walked into the arms of corporatism-sold folk fests to biz concerns-birthed "arena rock"--the good ol' days laid the groundwork for the bad new ones---old bobby dylan is makin xmas records---and the beatles are just a video game- spare me the nostalgia for those who made millions selling revolution but forgot to include the instructions lest their comfort, "security", and riches may have been at stake.
Good comment. Art, music, literature, movies and TV can be sources of understanding and courage. CAN BE, if those who have been blessed with the gifts of time, talent and training make them so. We should all use what we do best to make this a better world.
Joe
I'd like to see this article tweaked a bit with a header: "Artists, Musicians, Carpenters, Teachers, Techies, Geeks, Freaks, Cooks, Soldiers, Priests, Secretaries, Writers, All Global Citizens: All Raise Your Weapons!"
Every vocation has unique dynamics and every person has unique perspectives, levels of awareness and notions about action. The call to action is great, but hugely complex. The weapons of the citizenry are well evaluated and systematically neutralized by the Empire Builders and Controllers of the Wealth. I ask what weapons must be raised? Surely there is more needed than content for art work.
What I know is that something drastic must change to avert the ongoing state of warfare that threads so tightly through American history. It is a crime that such a business can be so ingrained in our lives.
It seems to me that the criminals must be rounded up and marched into the Hague and various Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. Once it begins it will be a long parade.
OK. How about a halfascist Uncle 'Bomb "peace" hand-signal: ,,I,, ?
No.
We need art that makes us angry about injustice and makes us act against injustice. We need art that makes us cry. We need art that informs us about the lives of others, and ourselves. We need art that teaches us sympathy and empathy. We need art that educates us about the world, about others, about ourselves. We ALSO need art that entertains us. We need art that diverts us. We need serious high-minded art. We need fluffy entertaining art. We need dirty low-minded art. We need art that explores all aspects of what it means to be human in this world, in this universe.
We need L'Internationale. We need Quilpayun and Sergio Ortega's ¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido! We need Frederic Rzewski's 36 Variations on ¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido! We need Hanns Eisler's Solidarity Song. We need Springsteen's Born in the USA. We also need whatever Lady Gaga is singing.
The idea that in particular bad times, art MUST be used as a weapon, and that not doing so is a betrayal of life itself, and that even in good times "fluffy" art is still a crime against one's muse, is the kind of thinking that leads to the barbarism of Stalinist Social Realism.
YES YES YES
And for all those who decry the celebrity culture think of this.
That artists ARE the celebrities shows that people understand the power of art, value art and value artists as one of the most important cultural aspects of our society.
All our art, including popular hollywood, television, music and books, are about the human experience offering stories about people who are not consumer driven nor look for "answers" to the mainstream but within their own heart and lives.
Post No Bills
I got three words for you: "Phi Zappa Krappa".
· Yr Obd't Servant
But don't the billionaires who own and run the earth think of themselves as "artists" as well?
Isn't the problem mainly one of power concentrations, and the malignant "art" that the caprices of rich and well-connected tyrants can produce?
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
This is a great article but it's seven years too late. Political artists need people who can afford to contribute to them just like progressive politics and investigative journalism. Now the economy is so ruined all progressive interests like these are in direct and increasingly intense competition with each other for money from the same limited set of donors. The time to resist on the scale McMillan suggests was after the stolen 2000 elections.
Artists are noticeably absent, awol, aboveground and quiet. Perhaps this is the Dead Artists Movement. In fairness to Artists there is no public to support resistance art. Perhaps we all sense our undoing in the final act.
Thank you, I needed to read this. I am an artist and environmentalist and lately I have been feeling as if I am just a fool.
In the 20th Century, as the "New York Abstractionists" on one hand, and the cloying, sentimental, "Norman Rockwell-want to be's" on the other hand, seemed to dominate the "art world" in this country, it was often difficult to remember that Picasso's "Guernica" , Turner's "Slave Ship", and Goya's "Sleep of Reason" were some of the most important works of the past two centuries.
Goya is a unique superstar, mainly for "The Disasters of War". nobody's gonna do anything like that again
I would add Victor Jara to the list -- he was murdered in Santiago Stadium in the days following the coup in Chile, 9/11/1973. First, his hands were smashed, then his body was filled with more than 30 bullets.
To hear Victor Jara's music, go to:
www.youtube.com
"Canto Libre" in just one of the selections, some of which are actual performances -- one of the responses from a couple of months ago reads, "We need 'Canto Libre' in the Honduras."
Many of you probably remember that following 9/11/2001, Clear Channel sent out a list of banned songs to their DJs. Amongst the songs on the list were "Imagine," "A Bridge Over Troubled Waters," several songs from Metallica, etc.
I disagree. Using left-wing politics as part of your art is a cheap easy gimmick to get recognition from critics. Look even at commercial publications like those for designers and illustrators, Print Magazine etc... All you need to do is silkscreen a poster with some political message or for a punk band or better yet both a political message and for a punk band and you'll win awards and be giving lectures in no time. It isn't anything new either. Left-wing politics have been a cheap gimmick of the both fine and commercial art throughout the entire past century. It's a great way to get a show in SoHo as well as sell corporate crap.
"Left-wing politics have been a cheap gimmick of the both fine and commercial art throughout the entire past century."
Not so fast there, ATLAW. You are conflating 'fine' and 'commercial' art. As an artist, my understanding is that 'commercial' art seeks to exploit in order to sell. 'Fine' art is an expression of the artist's "soul" (or other such intangibles that aim beyond mere 'commerce.') Fine art is about inspiration, whether it be a 'call to action,' a 'longing for what was,' or 'hope for what can be.'
Of course in the current situation (i.e. the Real World), and given that most artists aren't born into wealth (although I have a tangential theory about that), survival becomes an issue. The trick is to retain one's integrity while making one's true 'art,' especially if one is to 'use it as a weapon' - just to stay on topic.
One possibility is a 'B' job (where the 'A' job is the art). The artist is then free from the constraints of having to sell. Another is the 'metaphor.' History abounds with examples of subversive art, bought and paid for by the discreet charm of the Bourgeoisie.
I'm a retired American artist, which is to say that after twenty years hacking out brochures for liposuction equipment I now collect social security and am able to return to the landscape art that is meaningful to me. I know dozens of artists, some of whom are famous or semi-famous, and even a couple who actually make a living with it. When American mothers tell me how talented their kid is and ask what kind of education they should have I tell them if their child must major in art they should minor in drywall installation. This is America, where art museums are echoing vacuums and galleries are cute, empty and penniless. There have been times when European artists were a dynamic and integral part of their culture, when they were, if they chose to be, a social force. This has never been true in the United States, as much as artists would like to romanticize themselves as visionaries and movers and shakers. In Tucson all art openings are attended by the same 200 people. The other 540,000 are unaware that art exists. Exhibiting your stuff is very nice. It is nice to complete the creative process by sharing your vision with friends and art lovers and occasional buyers. But let's not give ourselves airs. We are not exactly a driving force in this dumbed down consumer culture. Perhaps from their perspective as published cartoonists with a small cult following Ted Rall and Stephanie McMillan perceive themselves as major centers of attention, but if they will stand on a chair and look to the periphery they'll see that the crowd is quite small. It's the same illusion that makes CD posters believe that their progressive 4% of the political spectrum represents more than a blip on the radar screen of policy makers and speech writers in Washington. As preposterous as it sounds in this forum, Obama will probably be re-elected because of his bullshit rather than in spite of it.
I don't know any good artists who do political stuff. I know some successful expressionists who address the human condition in a more universal way. They exhibit in Berlin and sometimes New York, and even hang up a few pieces for friends back here in Dogpatch. When I'm doing landscapes I'm not thinking about fighting evil or raging against the demented society I happen to live in. I'm thinking about the things artists are supposed to think about: color, value, composition, structure, dynamics, making a decent picture. It's easy to be pissed off like Goya, but less easy to draw like Goya. The anger, that is, needs to serve the art, not the other way around. A good rant is cathartic on occasion, but fixing our lost society can be a real time waster if it is nothing but a rant. Fortunately for artists we have the option to disengage from the human circus, shut off the television, get out our brushes and get in touch with something more substantive.
"It's easy to be pissed off like Goya, but less easy to draw like Goya. "
That is really about the best line I have heard in a long time. very true.
I think the article suffers seriously from over-simplification. If you leave the confines of The New York Times and academia, get out into coffeehouses, bars, communities, and among street artists across the country, you'll see quite a different picture. But one needs to pay close attention to some of the subtleness of this cultural upheaval (yes, in the U.S.) in music, poetry, painting & murals. Of course it doesn't show up in the maimstreammedia...and it may not fit your historical definition of revolutionary art...but it is growing (unevenly) and taking thousands of different paths.
it's a slow brewing revolution...so listen and participate!
ebbortz.blogspot.com
Since we're on the subject, and given the terrible political times we're in, where the HELL has Don Henley been this last decade+? He's hasn't done jack-squat, from what I've seen. What'd they do, take his brain out? I miss the hell out of his 'tude.
Having a specific eco project as the Walden Woods Project is great, fantastic, but hey, is that it, Don?
How about some new music for these troubled times. We sure as hell could use some.
To hell with Henley....we need Zappa. I gave up on Don Henley when he attacked Frank Zappa for not being commercial. Don sold his soul.
"We’re taught that it’s rude to be judgmental, that to assert a point of view violates the pure, transcendent and neutral spirit of art. This is mind-fucking bullshit designed to weaken and depoliticize us. In these times, there is no such thing as neutrality -- not taking a stand means supporting and assisting exploiters and murderers."
Nice line.
The Simpsons has been spoofing American life for the past 20 years. There is some good art out there.
Perhaps you want something more radical, closer to the bone. But you complain about money, or funding. That may be part of the problem. An artist's compensation should not be their motivation.
phasor quotes the article:
"not taking a stand means supporting and assisting exploiters and murderers."
That made me think this:
what, exactly, is an artist going to do to worry a murderer? paint something? sing something? dance?
murder and art live in two very different worlds, and art will never rule the world of the murderer...
Then why did Hitler outlaw "degenerate" art?
was he successful?
You seemed to be arguing that artists and their art are irrelevant to murderous tyrants. My point is that art was not irrelevant to Hitler. He evidently perceived certain art as a danger to his plans to control the thought of the German people through propaganda. I don't see why it matters whether or not his attempt to eliminate "degenerate" art was successful; the point is that he saw it as a threat.
it seemed the point of this article is that art is an EFFECTIVE threat...my response was meant to suggest that, while art may have AN effect, it will not, very often, be an EFFECTIVE threat...violence will not allow it to be...that was the reason i asked about hitler...he may have felt threatened by the art to a certain degree, but was able to handle the situation rather easily and expediently through either the threat, or the application of, violence...
thought policing is done because, as you suggest, the real threat of subversive influence exists...looking around, i just don't see non-violent subversion dominating...at least, not on the side of good...
'good' people view non-violence as a positive trait...what if you are up against those who view violent control, or elimination, of others as positive?
if the idea is that effective art inspires necessary, albeit dangerous, even sacrificial, action on the part of the citizenry, well, i suppose, but, lately, these kind of actions - creating art, petitioning politicians, appealing to religious leaders or deities - appear to be non-actions substituting for personal action...requests or hopes for others to act, while one sits back, claiming effort for the initiation...
this is understandable, given our current economic binding of our housing and our income...action is difficult when homelessness or prison awaits...united, we may reject and recreate our economic situation...perhaps art can help with that uniting...once united, however, the key word will be A C T, not A R T...
Global Start Date: September 22, 2012...let's get those gardens growing...planning and planting!
Here's my response to the murderers:
http://web.mac.com/ctb3
Here is some art to prove nobody is interested.
www.eitherbooksorchildren.blogspot.com
I'm too artsy myself to know how to make a link. Sorry.
I disagree.
The "transcendental neutrality" thing is a weak version of this argument.
If you want art that functions rather than decorates, the art itself, its production and display, must be integral in the synthesis of its ideas. Such synthesis may partake of previously assembled political ideas, but these ideas cannot themselves accomplish the synthesis.
That's why so many people who attempt political art and produce only art that decorates rather than functions.
Neutrality and "transcendence" in the sense of other-worldliness have nothing to do with that.
Stephanie McMillan fails to recognize her allies, and many of them likewise fail to recognize her.
Passion and percept are revolutionary in themselves and in a sense that is also political. We rebel because we would love and we would raise our children and see them approach contentment. The world that we perceive partially through the reframings of art is the world we occupy insofar as we perceive it, the only world we may perceive.
So GUERNICA called me before I knew of the Spanish Civil War or the town of that name because I could in part assemble in it the violence of my own tragedies. To appreciate how these tragedies whose quick I owned pertained to a village in Spain or in Viet Nam came later, depended and still depends on that artistic feeling and perceptual construct in a way that the art does not depend on the ideology.
My best and my thanks to Stephanie McMillan and the intelligence that informs her art. But I find the analysis her e amiss. Count me with Emma Goldman, who said "If I can't dance, start the revolution without me."
Count me thus not because I would prefer dance to revolution, but because I find it not a question of either/or, but of both or neither.
Dude, Who gives a fart about "critique"? Windy sparf...
Maybe just me, Xzorloc. But folks keep writing about it.
I'd love a way to be accurate about this kind of thing without being windy or complex. I don't see it here.
BURNING MAN..... There is your revolution, your gift economy, your dancing and revolution, and fuck the begrudgers. BLACK ROCK CITY is a window to another social contract, plus apocolypse practice.
Here in the fascist hell city of Los Angeles, we have our underground, Robbie Conal, Johanna Went, Norton Wisdom, Geza X, Wanda Gala, Pablo Capra, Toylit, Baretta, Etc etc.
We dance and we struggle in a gutter all our own, our 'weapons" never left our hands.
So what that there aint no money in it??? There never WAS. Any fool expecting some payday at this point has got to be an artschool moron anyway.
"Art is not a mirror that we hold up to society, but rather a hammer to shape it"
Bertolt Brecht
Artists have always taken up the staff of defiance to define what is awry with their times. The successful one found the expression and the medium to speak to the people of their times.
Its difficult to be seen or heard in the blitz of Twitter, youtube, Facebook, any game on the computer you can name, Netflix, TV - how can you compete with that in any traditional way?
Like revolutionaries that are heard, it isn't going to require 'the same old art' - its going to require a NEW ART that people can't ignore.
The face of art is getting larger and larger, more difficult to ignore - but the thing is, you have to be looking.
When I was young and visiting to new york, I was aware of an interesting phenomenon: if one stood still and just looked up into the air for any length of time, pretty soon, more and more people would stop and do the same thing. For the simple reason that most people spend their lives looking down at their iPhones, shoes and the sidewalk, avoiding contact with the world.
You have to be present and show up to be aware of what's in front of you. Its lost on 99% of the humans who are alive today.
TV And all its geneses killed our souls. We don't look, thus we don't SEE anymore.
Visual art depends on people being able to SEE.
Change the paradigm.
"When I was young and visiting to new york, I was aware of an interesting phenomenon: if one stood still and just looked up into the air for any length of time, pretty soon, more and more people would stop and do the same thing."
Those people who stopped and did the same thing, they were pickpockets trying to edge closer to you. To look up and stare (i.e. gawk at skyscrapers) in New York City is like putting a sign on your back saying: "Rob me. I'm just visiting and won't be here for your trial."
Funny. No one noticed that Stephanie
McMillan is a great artist. Her medium- cartoons- don't get near the respect it deserves.
I would argue that the only way anything true penetrates the mainstream media is in cartoons. Oliphant and Pett, Tom Toles, Jeff Danzinger, Mike Lukovitch- lots. newspapers that print their work would never ever write such radical ideas in their op eds.
also Ted Rall has gotta be the baddest artist working. do you remember generalissimo el busho?
Ted also writes some very tough prose.
Perhaps we could jumpstart this effort by challenging the art community to create their interpretation of a wingnut.
Stephanie McMillan,
Thank you for this relevant and empowering statement.
"We’re taught that it’s rude to be judgmental, that to assert a point of view violates the pure, transcendent and neutral spirit of art. This is mind-fucking bullshit designed to weaken and depoliticize us. In these times, there is no such thing as neutrality -- not taking a stand means supporting and assisting exploiters and murderers."
"Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented". -- Elie Wiesel
The artists of the world have a special gift in sensitivity and perform a service to humanity by expressing themselves.
I hold artists -- actors, writers, painters, musicians, etc. in high regard.
Artists feel things more deeply: social injustice in the form of animal cruelty, prejudice and violence.
If we were not viewed as judgemental or even, radical, artists would not be true to themselves or contributing to much-needed dissent.
"When the dominant culture spots political art, it sticks its fingers in its ears and sings, 'La la la!' It refuses to review it in the New York Times or award it an NEA grant. Political art is vigorously snubbed, ignored, condemned to obscurity, erased. If it’s too powerful to make disappear, then it is scorned, accused of being depressing, doom-and-gloom, preachy, impolite ... you can’t make a living if your work’s not vacuous, cynical and therefore commercially viable, so go starve under a bridge with your precious principles."
Stephanie McMillan, will you marry me? I'm still single at 40 because I have yet to meet a (beautiful white) woman who understands the aforementioned, and thus, understands why I caN'T afford to wine-and-dine her ...
Never before have I read something that oh, so perfectly captures the Hell I've been through (it also explains why Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is CONsidered a "flop" by the spoiled and stuck up). This piece is flawless.
For the record, I woN'T "starve under a bridge." Having been a victim of the very corporate censorship that McMillan describes, I've since boycotted day jobs to spite those bastards -- and even though I'm barely getting by, I *AM* getting by, by ONLY writing stories akin to The Quest for Peace and V for Vendetta (see SAABLOFTON.ORG for details).
Until the censorship ends ...