Art cannot initiate social transformation by itself, but it is increasingly vital in expanding the imaginations of those working towards it. Knowledge of how the world operates that comes solely from academic books and newspaper articles often affects on our most cynical and fatalistic impulses, and these impulses are pervasive amongst young people, and they get more frequent, not less, as the bad news comes faster.
Looking at an image that connects events in ways you haven’t yet conceived, or an installation that reconstructs something you’ve read about in visceral form can propel this cynicism felt by the younger generation towards action. And it has. The possibilities for artistic collaboration and the ability to say something about the world without needing to steep it in the depressing fatalities of everyday political
discourse is becoming a sanctuary for the younger generations, fed up with what is often called ‘mainstream’ politics, although it looks increasingly extreme to me.
Kennard and Slyce say that all art is political because it is interpreting our world through the lens of a unique artistic mind. This is like saying all politicians are political: it’s technically true, but in reality the majority tailor their beliefs to the exigencies of their respective political systems and become model commissars. Power is the motivator, and the politics falls into line after.
The same goes for arts own commissars whose work is conceived and sold as a commodified product, complete with conscious branding and the related newspaper fanfare about ‘controversy’ or ‘celebrity buyers’. There is nothing ‘political’ about it; in fact, the branding is the antithesis of political because rather than questioning the contemporary situation, it accepts all its presuppositions – no matter how violent or unjust – and seeks to ride on the froth of money and fame that tops this wave.
True political art, as distinguished from its banal and transient cousin, is trying to change the world as it is rather than observe it. It seeks to delve into the nightmares of the contemporary consciousness, investigate the deep cavities and expose the most diligently repressed secrets and terrors. It reformulates images and signs and gives us all a means through which to reinterpret the world. Kennard’s work has often done that and visualized the contradictions and hypocrisy of work word and action. Consequently it has largely been unpalatable to the art establishment because it spurns the trendy pieties and fads of the day, which give the appearance of dissent but upset noone and perfectly fits living room wall space.
His work is not pretty in the conventional sense – who wants a dead Vietnamese child on their wall? – but in connecting the different strands that so often bypass each other in our consciousness and rendering them together, he does something important and deeply political.
Joining the dots becomes revolutionary, which surely says less about the art than the prevailing ideology, which allows us to live happily without making the connections between the violence we unleash and the dead corpses all over the Middle East, East Asia, Africa, Latin America, that are our testimony. We shouldn’t need artists to make this clear, although we should be glad they are here to do it, and glad their ranks are growing, inspiring people to join the dots.
This post is tagged peter kennard
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