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All art is political. Good reviews won't ignore that. Being aware of politics is a side effect of paying attention. Nothing you can do about it.
by chowells 2y ago
All art is political. Good reviews won't ignore that. Being aware of politics is a side effect of paying attention. Nothing you can do about it.
- retox 2y agoPeople can project politics onto anything, but art does not need to be political.
- fake-name 2y ago> art does not need to be political Art is intrinsically political. If you think it's not political, that's because it's just taking a political position you either don't see, or one you agree with. The only way to remove politics from art would be to remove the people.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 2y agoI drew a painting of a rock at the beach. What are the intrinsic politics of the painting?
- sva_ 2y agoYour gracious political leaders have allowed you to sit on the beach and draw a picture, of course.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- patates 2y agoIs this art? What is the context? I can't tell without knowing the context. Who drew it? How did they draw it? Why did they draw it? What inspired them? Without understanding these aspects, nothing is art, or everything is art, and it loses its meaning. Yes, art is the projection of skill and beauty, but how we define skill and our perception of beauty also depend on context. You accepting the painting of the Mona Lisa as art tells something about you, while my grandfather rejecting it with the words "my 7-year-old granddaughter can draw better" tells something about him. This is inherently political. A modern art painting with color splashes is, in the most basic sense, not distinct from a 5-year-old playing with paint without context. With context, whether you accept it as art or not is political. > Politics is the set of activities associated with making decisions in groups or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. So even if you could argue that art itself is not political, you surely cannot argue that the perception of it isn't.
- Jensson 2y ago> you surely cannot argue that the perception of it isn't. Your perception of it is, most people don't see art as political. Nobody would find a painting of a sea with a rock to be political, except really annoying people.
- patates 2y agoI'm not really sure you didn't really read my comment or if this an unsuccessful attempt on appeal to absurdity. Anyway, funnily, the 1888 piece, "The Rocks", from Van Gogh was very political to show his impressionist alignment :) To repeat what a previous commenter said, nothing is political as long as they fit your political view.
- Jensson 2y ago> To repeat what a previous commenter said, nothing is political as long as they fit your political view. I don't share the politics of Van Gogh, yet I don't feel "The Rocks" is political. So in general there are plenty of stuff that you wont find political even if you don't share the views, that is what people mean when they say an art piece isn't political. A person who says such an art piece is political is just trying to find politics in art where there isn't one. Even if the original artist says it is political it isn't, because there is no politics in the art the politics was in his statement that it is political. Art stands on their own free from the opinions of their creators. You can of course embed political messages into art pieces making them political, but this isn't such a case. If you can't deduce what politics the person is trying to convey just from the art piece alone then it isn't political.
- patates 2y ago> I don't share Van Gogh's politics, yet I don't feel "The Rocks" is political. Don't you see the contradiction? I know people often complain that everything has become political. I understand because I do it too. The main problem in this discussion is the loss of nuance in the different usages and meanings of the word "political." In everyday usage, it refers to views being part of the policy-making process, especially when more pressing matters exist. What we really mean and criticize is divisive politics. However, in the extended view of politics, which is a very common view, designating something as art involves politics. It's a political process. This doesn't degrade art or make it inherently divisive. It certainly doesn't make art a subset of politics.
- lotsoweiners 2y agoArt is something people do for enjoyment oftentimes. My kids enjoy drawing and painting and I fail to see the political message behind their artwork.
- AlbertCory 2y agoNo, it isn't. That's only what people say if they insist on injecting politics into everything, even if it had gotten along fine without it.
- StefanBatory 2y agoYou read a book YA about young heroine rebelling. Why isn't she instead studying for her exams or volunteering for charity work? You read a book about adventurers. Why the act of doing so is praised, and not the act of hard work in fields or mills?
- Jensson 2y agoThe act of asking those questions is politics, you don't have to ask those questions. The real answer to those questions is that it makes the story more interesting. You are searching for a political reason where there is none. The question "what makes a story interesting" is philosophy and writing and not politics.
- michaelt 2y agoDo you read boring books because they're all about working in fields and mills? Do you enjoy adventure books, but avoid reading them because the content isn't weighty enough? Personally I powered through some boring-but-virtuous books in my youth, but now I'm a middle-aged adult with less free time, I've realised reading is supposed to be fun. So if a book review tells me a book is virtuous without telling me if it's fun, that book review isn't much use to me.
- Akronymus 2y ago> You read a book YA about young heroine rebelling. > Why isn't she instead studying for her exams or volunteering for charity work? Because that isn't the story the author came up with?
- dsr_ 2y ago... and that is because... Everything involving a substantial agreement or disagreement between persons is politics, that's what it means. Claiming that something 'should not be political' is almost always an assertion that your position is unassailably correct.
- TwentyPosts 2y agoJust because art always has a political component, doesn't mean reviews and discussions of it need to focus on viewing it through a political lens. Yes sure, art is political, but art is political in a different way in which a discussion forum might be said to be political, and it's entirely reasonable to wish for a discussion forum with a less political bent.
- sameoldtune 2y agoMeaning that the forum contains people who hold more of your own beliefs. You only notice the differing ones as political.
- chiefalchemist 2y ago> All art is political. By definition, all art should challenge the participant/consumer of it. That challenge can be personal, or something else. But all is not political. It only looks that way because in the current cultural environment The Politics Industrial Complex has over-developed (?) it's position in the hierarchy of the broader culture. It creases unhealthy biases etc to the point that We have forgotten "The government needs us, we don't need it." Everything is not political. We as individuals still have influence. The PIC's lens isn't working. It's a false god. The sooner we change that, the better.
- aniviacat 2y agoWhy should art challenge the participant? If I draw a painting of a pretty flower, that does not challenge you. It's just nice to look at.
- chiefalchemist 2y agoThen it's just whatever it is. Air? Beige? "Pretty"? Art is an expression by one (or more) that says to the receivers, "What say you?" Creativity !== Art
- dsr_ 2y agoWhich flower did you choose to paint? Why? Is it native, an import, a new arrival, or endangered? Is there cultural context? The Victorian Brits encoded messages into flowers; some of those meanings are still current. (Give a friend a red rose, another friend a potted daisy. Do they react differently?) A red poppy is a symbol of one thing, specifically because of culture. Chrysanthemums mean different things in America and Japan. And if the artist writes a statement: "This is just a painting of a pretty flower." that too is a political statement.
- aniviacat 2y agoIf everything is political, then all art is political, too. But this definition makes the term "political" meaningless. If you choose a definition for "political" which has actual use, not all art is political.
- somedude895 2y agoI think there's a misunderstanding in this discussion. As an observer you can make all art political if you project politics onto it. All art isn't political in that it can be – and often is – created without politics in mind.
- afiori 2y agoPeople that say "all art is political" often mean it as: - politics is about power dynamics, ideas, class, etc. - art production and consumption interacts with those - thus art is political.
- seneca 2y agoThat's a nonsensical definition. By that standard literally everything is political, which means the word has no meaning. That rubric is a lazy way for activists to try to smuggle their opinions into environments that frown on politicing.
- afiori 2y ago> That's a nonsensical definition. By that standard literally everything is political The definition implies it, yes > which means the word has no meaning. I disagree, the "if everithing is X then nothing is X" applies only to thing that are in part defined as negative/contrapposition like being special, tall, a luxury, progressive, conservative, etc. it does not make sense when applied to things like being religious, having human rights, being moral. "Everithing is political" means that nothing can be fully separated and insulated from the surrounding political atmosphere. I personally think it is not a constructive way to perceive the world, but it is perfectly self-consistent
- woooooo 2y agoWhat are the politics of "starry night"?
- afiori 2y agoI have no idea, nor do I necessarily think that they exists. An hypothrtical person holding the opinion I described might try to point out some effect the artwork had on the world as a political effect, I for sure do not know enough about art and/or history to speculate. In this view authorial intent has a second-class position to its tangible effect.
- abecedarius 2y ago"All art is political" is like "atheism is a religion". Obviously true if politics is everything to you. I'd call it 'true' in the same self-referential way as "dollars/bitcoin have value": it holds to the extent everyone believes in it. It's worth asking if the world where it holds is a better one.
- atoav 2y agoI disagree with your comparison. All art is political, because art relates itself to the society it is made in whether the artist likes it or not. Is a Nazi painter that paints totally apolitical pictures of landscapes while the genocide is happening one village over apolitical? i'd argue that this would be deeply political art, even if it wasn't meant to be just that. Taking no stance, while the world around you is happening is a political stance in itself. Being apolitical is also political – in a stark difference to various gods politics will also affect you and your life, if you don't believe in politics.
- abecedarius 2y agoI did kind of say that to the extent the people around you make all of life political, you can't avoid that constructed social truth. But like the value of money it's a 'truth' conditioned on a particular equilibrium. There's another equilibrium where pushy haters of private life are a small minority.
- sph 2y ago> All art is political. Nonsense. Art is strongly related to culture, and culture is strongly related to politics. The fact that art these days is very much viewed in a political frame, in the US in this case, is because politics have taken a huge role in US culture. Like, it's all American people seem to be thinking about these days. But no, art is not political in itself. Art, by some definition, is a thing whose meaning is created by who experiences it. Art might look political if the observer looks at it in a political point-of-view. But in reality, tinned faeces [1] are not a political statement nor a reflection on the human condition. They are literally just shit in a box. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%27s_Shit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%27s_Shit
- aorist 2y agoI think this is too strong. If art has no inherent meaning, you can't say that it's not making a political statement, only that whether it's making a political statment or not is undefined. Otherwise, saying that something is not making a political statement is actually a very strong political statement in itself (e.g. things which are "not political" can't be negotiated or changed).