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There's more to life than the political, so why should there be only political art? I see the pressure for art to be political to be somewhat unusual, precipit

There's more to life than the political, so why should there be only political art? I see the pressure for art to be political to be somewhat unusual, precipitated by the times. In the 30s, there was a strain of artists who condemned any art that wasn't overtly political. This really seems the exception, probably a cyclically so. There is a lot of religious art, and probably more normative in the West is art based on the artist's personal expression. Nevertheless, every artifact of culture can be placed within its context and declared political in some way. Probably we can use the politicization of art as an indicator of a society's health, i.e. is this a culture that no longer believes in itself?

crooked-v 4y ago
> There's more to life than the political Everything is political. If you think a subject isn't political, it's because that subject isn't controversial to you personally.
- function_seven 4y ago
  To write "everything is political" is to water down the term "political" so much that it loses meaning. If I paint a picture of a sailing ship cresting a wave, is my art political? I see beauty in the sprays of water, the upward cant of the ship, the sails full of wind, the gulls in the background, etc. How about a bowl of fruit? Or a blacksmith forging horseshoes? No, not everything is "political". Yes, politics affects most aspects of life, but that does not mean everything is political any more than "everything is sexual" or "everything is financial". Money and sex also permeate our lives in small and large ways. My painting of the fruit bowl is not a commentary on sex, nor is my blacksmith painting making any sort of statement on money.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - uoaei 4y ago
    Everything having to do with maintaining relationships between persons is political. This also includes one maintaining the relationship with oneself. So, everything in your subjective experience, as centered on the personal narrative (ego), is political.
  - crooked-v 4y ago
    > If I paint a picture of a sailing ship cresting a wave, is my art political? Yes. Modern sailing ships are a symbol of wealth inequality, and historical ones have plenty of other controversial associations, depending on time period. > How about a bowl of fruit? Also yes. Access to fresh fruit is a political subject. Just look at maps of food deserts. > Or a blacksmith forging horseshoes? Stick around here for long enough and you'll find plenty of people arguing over the idealization of rural life, the roles of domesticated animals, etc.
    - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    - bigmealbigmeal 4y ago
      This is a semantic distortion of what most people mean when they say something is political. Yes, a painting of fruit can be discussed within a political context. But when we say a piece of art is political, we don't mean it can be seen within a political context. We mean that the piece of art is intended to be seen within a political context, or that the political context is blatantly apparent. Yes, this means whether or not something is political is subjective. That's how people use the word, just as they might describe something as angry or meaningful. When people say "everything is political", just as they say "racism is prejudice plus power", they are discarding the in-practice meaning of these words and replacing them with meanings that were invented to support a particular cause.
    - function_seven 4y ago
      > Yes. Modern sailing ships are a symbol of wealth inequality, and historical ones have plenty of other controversial associations, depending on time period. So what statement am I making about any of these? My painting is of a ship, cresting a wave. > Also yes. Access to fresh fruit is a political subject. Just look at maps of food deserts. I didn't paint a food desert, or of anyone having or not-having access to the bowl in my painting. My painting is of fruit. In a bowl. What political statement am I making? > Stick around here for long enough and you'll find plenty of people arguing over the idealization of rural life, the roles of domesticated animals, etc. So what political statement is my painting making here? If the viewer of any of these paintings is interpreting them through their own political lens, it does not mean the art itself is political. It means the viewer is. Obviously if I paint a group of infantrymen menacing poor villagers who cower in fear, I'm making a statement. A lot of effort is required to present the menace, the fear, the looming and the cowering, the sneers and the pleas, etc. An apple sitting in a bowl presents none of those attributes. Unless you want to make appreciation of natural beauty a political issue. I won't go there.
  - fzeroracer 4y ago
    The problem with your argument(s) is that you remove an important variable from the equation, which is context. Art + context = political. In a way, many people are falsely applying the whole 'death of the author' thing but instead to pieces of artwork. For example, it would be incredibly hard to argue that the work of HP Lovecraft wasn't intensely political. Much of his work was strongly informed by his racist beliefs (even for the era), which waned as he grew older. Few people would argue that showing the horror of what happened to Emmett Till is political nowadays, but at the time it was a heavily politicized thing as the article mentions. If you think something isn't political, then you might be lacking the context that makes it political. Some people believe including any sort of gay relationships in a tv series is political, others don't. How do you separate who is right, other than by your own judgment based on your own personal political compass?
    - Beltalowda 4y ago
      It reminds me a bit of these old paintings which are filled with allegories and symbolism that many people today just completely miss; e.g. a lute is a symbol of female fertility and stuff like that. I'd have to re-read Lovecraft's works, but I never got this impression myself when reading it. Not that I'm saying you're wrong, just underscoring that the context of the reader also matters as you say. This also applies in the other direction: you might read "meaning" into some piece of literature or art that the original creator(s) never intended.
- nescioquid 4y ago
  If I understand "political" to pertain to any activity that occurs in a polis, then you're right. If I were to spend time studying number theory, that, too, is political because it is an activity carried out within a polis, and it is impossible to separate the act from the entire web of interdependencies within the polis. I think your linkage of the political with the controversial is telling and makes me think this is not the idea of "political" you have in mind. In which case, I hope I'm making the non-controversial statement that an artist's intent is distinct from the interpretation of the artist's work. Sometimes an artist's intent is political, sometimes it is not. Sometimes a political interpretation sheds light on a work, and sometimes it doesn't. A long time ago, I recall one of my classmates telling me about a lecture he attended in which an analysis of Ancient Voices of Children was given with George Crumb in the audience. Afterwards, Crumb said he found the analysis fascinating and that he was unaware of the set of relationships discussed in the analysis until they had been pointed out, but none of those things were salient to him while he was composing the work. So I think the artist's intent is privileged, while any mode of analysis or interpretation has the burden of proving its value in each particular case.
car_analogy 4y ago
> There's more to life than the political, so why should there be only political art? function_seven's observation that "To write "everything is political" is to water down the term "political" so much that it loses meaning." is the most insightful, but does not answer the question. But the answer is simple. Those who write "art should be political", do so because they think art will advance their brand of politics. Anything that advances politics counter to theirs is, of course, not art, but propaganda.

crooked-v 4y ago

> There's more to life than the political Everything is political. If you think a subject isn't political, it's because that subject isn't controversial to you personally.

function_seven 4y ago
To write "everything is political" is to water down the term "political" so much that it loses meaning. If I paint a picture of a sailing ship cresting a wave, is my art political? I see beauty in the sprays of water, the upward cant of the ship, the sails full of wind, the gulls in the background, etc. How about a bowl of fruit? Or a blacksmith forging horseshoes? No, not everything is "political". Yes, politics affects most aspects of life, but that does not mean everything is political any more than "everything is sexual" or "everything is financial". Money and sex also permeate our lives in small and large ways. My painting of the fruit bowl is not a commentary on sex, nor is my blacksmith painting making any sort of statement on money.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- uoaei 4y ago
  Everything having to do with maintaining relationships between persons is political. This also includes one maintaining the relationship with oneself. So, everything in your subjective experience, as centered on the personal narrative (ego), is political.
- crooked-v 4y ago
  > If I paint a picture of a sailing ship cresting a wave, is my art political? Yes. Modern sailing ships are a symbol of wealth inequality, and historical ones have plenty of other controversial associations, depending on time period. > How about a bowl of fruit? Also yes. Access to fresh fruit is a political subject. Just look at maps of food deserts. > Or a blacksmith forging horseshoes? Stick around here for long enough and you'll find plenty of people arguing over the idealization of rural life, the roles of domesticated animals, etc.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  - bigmealbigmeal 4y ago
    This is a semantic distortion of what most people mean when they say something is political. Yes, a painting of fruit can be discussed within a political context. But when we say a piece of art is political, we don't mean it can be seen within a political context. We mean that the piece of art is intended to be seen within a political context, or that the political context is blatantly apparent. Yes, this means whether or not something is political is subjective. That's how people use the word, just as they might describe something as angry or meaningful. When people say "everything is political", just as they say "racism is prejudice plus power", they are discarding the in-practice meaning of these words and replacing them with meanings that were invented to support a particular cause.
  - function_seven 4y ago
    > Yes. Modern sailing ships are a symbol of wealth inequality, and historical ones have plenty of other controversial associations, depending on time period. So what statement am I making about any of these? My painting is of a ship, cresting a wave. > Also yes. Access to fresh fruit is a political subject. Just look at maps of food deserts. I didn't paint a food desert, or of anyone having or not-having access to the bowl in my painting. My painting is of fruit. In a bowl. What political statement am I making? > Stick around here for long enough and you'll find plenty of people arguing over the idealization of rural life, the roles of domesticated animals, etc. So what political statement is my painting making here? If the viewer of any of these paintings is interpreting them through their own political lens, it does not mean the art itself is political. It means the viewer is. Obviously if I paint a group of infantrymen menacing poor villagers who cower in fear, I'm making a statement. A lot of effort is required to present the menace, the fear, the looming and the cowering, the sneers and the pleas, etc. An apple sitting in a bowl presents none of those attributes. Unless you want to make appreciation of natural beauty a political issue. I won't go there.
- fzeroracer 4y ago
  The problem with your argument(s) is that you remove an important variable from the equation, which is context. Art + context = political. In a way, many people are falsely applying the whole 'death of the author' thing but instead to pieces of artwork. For example, it would be incredibly hard to argue that the work of HP Lovecraft wasn't intensely political. Much of his work was strongly informed by his racist beliefs (even for the era), which waned as he grew older. Few people would argue that showing the horror of what happened to Emmett Till is political nowadays, but at the time it was a heavily politicized thing as the article mentions. If you think something isn't political, then you might be lacking the context that makes it political. Some people believe including any sort of gay relationships in a tv series is political, others don't. How do you separate who is right, other than by your own judgment based on your own personal political compass?
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
    It reminds me a bit of these old paintings which are filled with allegories and symbolism that many people today just completely miss; e.g. a lute is a symbol of female fertility and stuff like that. I'd have to re-read Lovecraft's works, but I never got this impression myself when reading it. Not that I'm saying you're wrong, just underscoring that the context of the reader also matters as you say. This also applies in the other direction: you might read "meaning" into some piece of literature or art that the original creator(s) never intended.
nescioquid 4y ago
If I understand "political" to pertain to any activity that occurs in a polis, then you're right. If I were to spend time studying number theory, that, too, is political because it is an activity carried out within a polis, and it is impossible to separate the act from the entire web of interdependencies within the polis. I think your linkage of the political with the controversial is telling and makes me think this is not the idea of "political" you have in mind. In which case, I hope I'm making the non-controversial statement that an artist's intent is distinct from the interpretation of the artist's work. Sometimes an artist's intent is political, sometimes it is not. Sometimes a political interpretation sheds light on a work, and sometimes it doesn't. A long time ago, I recall one of my classmates telling me about a lecture he attended in which an analysis of Ancient Voices of Children was given with George Crumb in the audience. Afterwards, Crumb said he found the analysis fascinating and that he was unaware of the set of relationships discussed in the analysis until they had been pointed out, but none of those things were salient to him while he was composing the work. So I think the artist's intent is privileged, while any mode of analysis or interpretation has the burden of proving its value in each particular case.

car_analogy 4y ago

> There's more to life than the political, so why should there be only political art? function_seven's observation that "To write "everything is political" is to water down the term "political" so much that it loses meaning." is the most insightful, but does not answer the question. But the answer is simple. Those who write "art should be political", do so because they think art will advance their brand of politics. Anything that advances politics counter to theirs is, of course, not art, but propaganda.