Politics of Art, Art of Politics, And Such Disgusting Things

Conceiving this title alone created in my mouth a taste so bitter I would have preferred to drink hemlock. I fear that it will make people run for the hills, in spite of its shortness. How long have I strived to keep away from the poison that is politics, only for man’s stupidity to rope me back in at every turn? The person who takes a taste for politics is a masochist of his soul and a torturer of his friendship. With this understanding I envy the median voter because they do not ascribe any further thought to their vote other than the two or three values that they hold in their hearts; against this we find the unmedian voter, the specialized and politicized man, who has developed for himself a mental ideology that ultimately dictates and therefores enslaves all his living. This is the perfect description of the man who says, with impressively audacious confidence, that all art is political.

Nobody says all art is political in the lone of night. No one makes this observation unprompted, as a fleeting thought that arises when longing over the meaning of art. Instead, it has always arisen out of reaction, of response to those who say that they want to see less politics in art. In a way, everyone understands this: we distinctly recognize things that purposefully express a political character and things that don’t. However, when someone desires less politics in the art they see, and it just so happens that the politics in the art are your politics, you cannot proceed with this distinction. To give in to the person who wants less of your politics despite a very reasonable wording would be treasonous to your ever-so-correct ideology. Therefore, you have to be asinine, you have to throw away all intellectual honesty and tell them that all art is political, and therefore they are wrong, and therefore they are stupid (or perhaps dishonest), and therefore they must be accepting of the political character expressed by the art.

For the uninitiated who are clueless as to the meaning of the phrase all art is political, it is usually explained like this: because art was produced in a political environment, the art is political. Because the art was made while a government reigned above the artist, the art is political. Even if the artist drew an orange and an apple as a study for practice, the art is still political. The art is political because politics existed during the time of its production. This is the explanation used by every single person I have seen used this term as a rhetorical device, and if you are one of the few who still possess a soul in this forsaken world (quite the struggle), you have already realized how disingenuous you have to be to use this idea as a counter against somebody who desires less politics in art.

It is quite easily perceived that this phrase isn’t really used as a true expression of belief but rather a semantically correct way of proceeding with the discussion without really saying anything. What are even the implications of “all art is political”, if you think for a minute? If everything exists under a political context, then everything is political, but then if everything is political, then something being political doesn’t mean anything any longer. My heart beating is political, my breathing is political, my gardening is political, my coffee-drinking is political, my four-year-old nephew’s drawing is political, and the stubbing of my little toe against the wall is political. Political here ceases to have meaning, and you cannot even relate the meaning of political to what it describes; what is the political character behind my little toe? What can you intelligently and usefully articulate other than highly speculative, most likely untrue metaphysics?

Of course, everything is made under a political context. Politics can very well have an influence on the making of art, indirectly or otherwise, and a lot of art is made with a political purpose in mind. However, there is art that is produced without political intent. My nephew drawing a flower and a tree on a piece of cheap A4 photocopy paper is not attempting to express a profound economic ideal or a reflection on the struggles of the marginalized. It is completely reasonable to say that flowers and that tree have no politics in them. If I say it has no politics in it, and you start dwelling on such things as the supply-chain which provided him that paper and the labor of the person that went into the production of his wax crayons, then it is evident that you are feigning to understand what is obviously meant, that the flower and the tree are really just a flower and a tree, completely devoid of political expression. I would also argue that you lack a soul for only seeing the capitalist machinery behind my nephew’s drawing instead of his talent, and perhaps I would recommend an exorcism.

When someone says they want art without politics, that they want to see less politics in art, then this is what they mean: less art that intends to express something politically. When has somebody looked at a painting of a mere lake and thought to themselves that they want less political art, in the sense that they want art which carries no context whatsoever as to its production? That thought would be inane, and then you would be correct to point out that there is no art that is produced outside of the worldly and historical influence of politics. However, if they say that they want less political art as they watch something which expresses an economic ideal, a social value, or a statement on religion, then it is evident what they mean, and they mean that they want art which purposefully expresses less of this. Pointing out that the art was made under the reign of politics is simply disingenuous, proves that you have nothing useful to say, and would rather come up with a cheap rhetorical device than a more cohesive argument defending your politics.