Art and Politics – A Survey: Part 1

*Read the 2004 survey here

Nato Thompson
is the chief curator at Creative Time, New York. He has organized major projects for Creative Time such as ‘Democracy in America: The National Campaign’ (2008), Paul Chan’s ‘Waiting for Godot in New Orleans’ (2007) and Mike Nelson’s ‘A Psychic Vacuum’. Previous to Creative Time, he worked as Curator at MASS MoCA where he completed numerous large-scale exhibitions such as ‘The Interventionists: Art in the Social Sphere’ (2004), a survey of political art of the 1990s with a catalogue distributed by MIT Press. His writings have appeared in numerous publications including BookForum, Art Journal, tema celeste, Parkett, Cabinet and The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest. He recently curated an exhibition for Independent Curators International titled ‘Experimental Geography’ with a book available by Melville House Publishing. Thompson edited Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991–2011, co-published by MIT Press and Creative Time Books this year.

Do you think there has been a resurgence in political art?

I honestly can’t say. If we are discussing whether there has been a resurgence of artists interested in using culture to affect the world around them, I would say certainly. If we are asking if the infrastructures of what constitutes the loose-knit structure that we colloquially refer as the art world, I would be much more cautious. I think that ultimately cultural production is an integral part of the fabric of political life today and thus it would make sense that culture makers are participating in this arena.

If we asked the questions, has there been a resurgence of art in politics, the answer would most definitely be a yes. We could point to the fact that a large percentage of those participating in the Occupy movement in the United States self-identified with the arts as an indication. But we could also point to the fact that every facet of power today comes with its own marketing, communications and advertising teams and budgets, which, in essence, are the gears of culture sewn into the fabric of control. Warhol’s dreams are a political reality that we must now contend with.

Can you give an example of a piece of art that you think is politically effective?

The discussion around effect and affect is extremely important and complicated. For too long there has been this tedious debate between an Adornian perspective that often becomes pathetically conservative and the Brechtian perspective that often becomes pathetically didactic. They are false opposites that too often balk at the lack of understanding of the power of affect and transversality in collective processes as well as the current political reality we live in where the production of affect is the production of politics.

In terms of effective, I could point to the project of Laurie Jo Reynolds who has been working with a group of prison reform activists in Chicago called Tamms Year Ten whose entire goal has been the closure of a maximum security prison called Tamms. Through a series of workshops with inmates families, letter writing campaigns, legislative theater, and basic grassroots organizing, they have managed to get the governor of Illinois to consider closing the prison down. That would be what I would call and effective campaign.

But there also affective projects that are generally more in the realm of how we understand the arts that are interesting as well. I could point to the photo projects of Zoe Strauss where she photographed the people of Philadelphia over the course of the last decade and once a year would have a photo show under a freeway overpass and at a given time, people could take the photos with them. It was a unique way for people to literally see the people around them in a new light and not feel like it was some exclusive art world thing. It was just an experimental way to produce the civic. That was affective.

Do you think it is effective to make political work that functions within the art world, or is that simply preaching to the converted?

I would definitely not call the art world converted. The art world is a loose knit series of structures that have different pockets that do different things. Some are perhaps more like specialty hobbyists who think of the arts like a nice digestive after dinner. Others think of the arts as a place to demonstrate their junior high school dreams of being cool and in fashion. Others think of it as a place to demonstrate their academic prowess and knowledge. And others think of them as a great place for ideas. So this is all too say, there are many art worlds with very different ideas of what is value.

I think in general we need platforms in the arts that speak to the broader language of culture. Does the BBC speak to the converted? What would that even mean? Does Al Jazeera speak to the converted?

For very obvious reasons, the arts in general reflect the conservative logic of their underlying economic values. Most of it is propped up by the basic needs and logic of the gallery system. This is in some ways the problem of Frieze having an art fair. It is a basic conflict of interest. In general, I think the question of conflict of interest would do well in the arts. I realize Frieze isn’t the only one in this conundrum. We all are. But it isn’t enough to just put our hands in the air and say, ‘oh well’.

That said there are pockets that somehow can shirk that complication enough to appreciate that the values and contributions of culture makers can speak to the concerns of everyday life. That is to say, the arts need not be a field unto themselves. Since culture is the language of the production of power, it would make sense that those that think of themselves as culture makers should participate vocally in these structures.

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev
is a curator and writer based in Rome, Kassel, and New York. She is the Artistic Director of dOCUMENTA (13). After organizing exhibitions as an independent curator in different countries, from 1999 to 2001 she was senior curator of exhibitions at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, a MoMA Affiliate. She was the chief curator at the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art in Turin from 2002 to 2008 (and interim director of the museum in 2009). She was the co-curator of the first Turin Triennial in 2005 and artistic director for the 16th Biennale of Sydney in 2008.

What constitutes political art?

All art is political, in one way (reactionary) or another (participates in processes of changing the world, informed by principles of justice, liberation from effects of power and emancipation from global finance).

Do you think there has been a resurgence in political art?

Yes.

Can you give an example of a piece of art that you think is politically effective?
AND AND AND events/actions.

Do you think it is effective to make political work that functions within the art world, or is that simply preaching to the converted?

I think it does preach to the converted, but it can still be historically significant and meaningful; that’s why it’s best when it acts outside the art world, in the world at large, with people who are not in the art world, like projects in zones of conflict or under siege.

Oliver Ressler
is an artist and filmmaker based in Vienna, Austria. www.ressler.at

What constitutes political art?

Political art is art that deals with political issues in a critical way. I object to the idea that all art is political – something that is heard frequently. Political art as I see it aims at analyzing, criticizing and/or changing society. Art becomes political, when it begins invading the spheres of politics, whereas I would localize ‘politics’ rather in social movements and radical political organizations than in the ossified political institutions such as parliaments and parties.

Do you think there has been a resurgence in political art?

Well, if you observe this crazed class war from above, which is currently taking place against working people on an intensified global scale due to the crisis, it is astonishing that there are not more artists adopting a political art practice. I assume it has to do with the power and influence of a conservative art market and how artists depend on it. I think there have always been political art practices, so the notion of ‘resurgence’ to me is wrong. Maybe there is a resurgence of interest by art magazines and art institutions in political art, for which this questionnaire might be a symptom.

Can you give an example of a piece of art that you think is politically effective?

I have worked on three films on the alter-globalization movement since 2001 (one in collaboration with the Italian political scientist Dario Azzellini; one with the Sydney-based artist Zanny Begg) that were not only presented several times in the art scene, but were also numerously presented by the movement itself, e.g. for the mobilization of several counter-summit protests. Therefore these films helped spread political arguments and tactics by the movement to different fractions of the movement elsewhere.

Do you think it is effective to make political work that functions within the art world, or is that simply preaching to the converted?

I reject the idea that presenting work within the art world is a form of preaching to the converted. This is a highly simplistic description of the art scene as homogenous, which it is not at all. The art world is broad and dominated by people who are neither interested nor involved in any of the current struggles to overcome the capitalist system and/or corporate-driven representative democracy. But of course an art project which aims at being effective will usually not stay within the confines of the art system, but try to address society at large.

Helen Molesworth
is the Barbara Lee Chief Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

What constitutes political art?

Once more with feeling, all art is, in some ways, ‘political’. (As are all choices regarding meals, lodging, lovers, movies, music, books, news media, engagement with social media, whether or not to watch television, travel to biennials, read art magazines and so on … ad infinitum.)

Do you think there has been a resurgence in political art?

Why are we continually bound to the narcisstic idea that the present is the only time that matters? Through what function of compulsion do we identify our current moment as the moment of the ‘resurgence’ of any idea, form, affect, or experience?

Can you give an example of a piece of art that you think is politically effective?

What does ‘politically effective’ mean? What assumptions does such a question presume about the sensibilities of the writer, the reader and the artist?

Do you think it is effective to make political work that functions within the art world, or is that simply preaching to the converted?

In my experience, the so-called art world is hardly a homogenous field of enlightened protagonists on the world historical stage (aka the converted) operating separately from the world at large. As for the preaching … surely the history of the twentieth century is littered with a myriad of ways to discard precisely such cliched formulations, inasmuch as they do not help us address our current state of emergency which, as we know, is not the exception but the rule?