how, indeed.

This article raises some interesting questions about the role of the artist locally and internationally. Have local artists become decorators? entertainers? pawns of political and real estate interests? Are we fluffing the poodle or are we capable of tugging at the leash and growling at the handlers.

Interesting article and Louise Shaw brings up important, fascinating questions:

Do artists have a responsibility to engage with social and political issues?
Yes. But it’s important to keep in mind that there are an infinite number of ways to do that. Oftentimes we tend to think of “politics” as issue-based or event-based. I think artists should address the political in art in that they should consider the various levels of power between people. But an artist can do that in so many ways, often without even identifiably addressing a particular issue or supporting or denouncing a particular political platform. I would say that Kiki Smith’s work at the High or the Hogarth prints at the Carlos are very political in that sense, though there’s no immediately identifiable social issue or political cause. But then again, many great works of art don’t seem to engage in the political at all, even in that broad sense. Would we advise Matisse not to do paper cut-outs because they’re not socially engaged enough? That seems foolish.

How can we measure the impact of socially relevant art? The phrase “art and social change” has many connotations. What does it mean in practice?
Someone once asked: Can an artist save the world? And the answer: “Artists already do save the world. Everyday.” I think that’s true. What would our political and social landscape look like if there were no art? Art does make world-saving social changes to human-consciousness everyday in my opinion, though they often can’t be seen in election results or put into a chart or graph and so on. The impact of some art seems measurable: Shepard Fairey’s Obama-Hope picture became part of a campaign for political office, for example, and the message of the stark “Silence=Death” stickers were instantly remembered by anyone who saw them. But for the most part, the changes art brings about and its impact aren’t easily quantifiable. Often it’s hard to measure the impact of art on ourselves as individuals, much less on a large group of people. But when I go to an art event I can be reasonably certain that it will be non-violent, that I won’t be harassed or assaulted there and so on, and I imagine that’s true of art events around the world. The creation and maintenance and care and honoring of that sort of space is a political act.

How can Atlanta insert itself into the international arts dialogue? Working hard. Continuing to produce (and discuss) great work, opening ourselves up to the zillion different things “great” might mean.

Thank you Burnaway for continuing these conversations. I want to say that agree with this statement by Andrew Alexander,” it’s important to keep in mind that there are an infinite number of ways to do that (be political in one’s work)”.
I think there are a number of artists in Atlanta that address or have at times addressed the political via issues of globalization, community, identity, the war etc. (to name a few, John Q, Danielle Roney, Joe Peragine, Fahamu Pecou, Lynn Linnemaier, Chris Revelle there are more but names escape me at this moment). The ‘political’ in art as I see it has transformed itself away from the very specific ‘issue art’ that was prevalent in the 90′s. One must remember what was going on in the cultural landscape at that time. During that time many shows were exclusively based on politics, remember the 1993 Whitney Biennial? Now the conversation has broadened and I think become less specific. Afterall, a new generation has entered the artworld, and concerns have shifted to the global rather than the specificity of the individual(identity) which I feel was prevalent in the 90′s. The visual language that artists use today has also shifted giving way at times to a more nuanced or less direct and specific agenda this does not mean that artists have shunned politics or have no social conscience. If the issue is with the curating that is going on in town that is separate from what artists are doing or what they are interested in doing. One can be highly political but have no need to express that directly in their work.

some good points Rocio, but if the standard is the ’90′s, that’s not much of a standard. and yes, curation is a whole other issue…

but, i had to mention that “politics” and “social conscience” are not really synonyms. the venn diagram does intersect, of course. but they should not be equated.

for many, politics is a take it or leave it kind of topic. and far too many leave it, for fear of being stereotyped, or fear of taking a stand, or fear of having to think too much, or just out of their own distaste/weariness/apathy, whatever.

yes, sure, subtlety can be good. and nuance can make artwork more fuflfilling. but speaking from personal experience, both as creator of artwork and as a viewer of others’ artwork, it can also be a way to avoid or dance around an issue instead of having the courage, or the know-how, to address it head on.

the idea that politics in art might now going to be reinvented by the “new generation” is as absurd and utopian, and even disresepctful, if unintendedly so, as those who say the 99 movement will reinvent democracy and render the “old politics” of left and right obsolete. such a notion is naive and ignores decades of intense dedication, devotion, and sacrifice by many many people who, unlike americans, did not go to sleep, politically, in 1968. people who have continued to fight the very same fight that many of the 99 are just now finding time to join in. people who have long held their noses when necessary and just vote, and volunteer, and petition, and march, and refuse to fall prey to bumper sticker compartmentalization of complex issues, like how socialist-democratic societies can or might move beyond the old lexicon of communism vs capitalism. people who know that obama was elected to captain a centrist and largely apathetic nation, and he knows it. so he dances according to their lead, that is, our lead. people who have known that lbj would have never passed the civil rights act if it had not been for both mlk and malcolm and many others of varying idealogies and approaches. people who know, that artists must take open and honest risks, just like those folks staking tents in parks and risking bodily harm at the hands of authority.

the nuanced approach is useful and can be wonderful. but it is not enough. just like twitter and facebook as they’re referenced in the term “social media revolution”: they can indeed help create a revolution, but they’re no substitute for real feet in real streets.

Speaking of telling Matisse not to do cut-outs because they are not political enough ( Andrew Alexander’s comment)…

In 1907 Apollinaire, commenting about Matisse in an article published in La Falange, said, “We are not here in the presence of an extravagant or an extremist undertaking: Matisse’s art is eminently reasonable.”[19] But Matisse’s work of the time also encountered vehement criticism, and it was difficult for him to provide for his family.[9] His controversial 1907 painting Nu bleu was burned in effigy at the Armory Show in Chicago in 1913. (wikipedia)

I think I would prefer to have my work burned in effigy than have it characterized as “eminently reasonable”. The passion that surrounds art is emblematic of the human condition.

To get back to Louise’s point which I think is not that we need to tell artists what to do or to point out a few politically engaged artists( BTW Rocio I think everyone you named is over 30 years old)- it is that in general we are not seeing the kinds of envelope stretching( uncomfortable) encounters that one would expect of these times.

We are all witnesses to this ” great unraveling.” All our institutions are suspect and this thought is shared by both political parties. When government is just a protectorate of the wealthy and privileged then we have crossed the line of how to collectively function for the greater good.

I think artists have a somewhat higher responsibility (even within their self expression) to be protectors of individual freedoms for a whole of society. This is a battle. Perhaps not everyone needs to produce artistic weapons against the crimes of the corporate oligarchy but ATL could sure use some more troops backing the front line. Figure out a way to be a menace to the status quo- it has raped our land and destroyed our educational, political and economic systems.

OCCUPY Everything!!!!!!!!!!!.

also, almost every artist rocio mentions is actually over 40. which, is meaningless anyway. the younger generation is not the saviour. but they must get involved. and there is room for and a need for some of that involvement to be direct and not so nuanced.

Louise, your question about why Atlanta’s artists aren’t more engaged with the political is certainly difficult to address well. I don’t think you’re wrong exactly, but the situation seems more nuanced to me. The war in Iraq inspired some excellent responses from Atlanta artists, particularly Cecelia Kane’s “Hand to Hand” project and Richard Sudden’s funerary wreath installation.

But what counts as “political” is always contextual. The artist Mark Dion says that the contemporary artist’s primary job is “to function as a critical foil to dominant culture.” What’s the nature of Atlanta’s dominant culture?

Certainly many of the three dozen artists in the Atlanta Art Now book are dealing with issues of space, place, identity, history, the environment, etc. in ways that challenge the dominant culture of Atlanta if only because they are finding compelling ways to ask important questions. We could debate which of these artists are doing political work in quite the sense you mean, but some probably fit your bill (John Q’s Memory Flash, Lisa Tuttle’s Dirty Truth Campaign, Arturo Lindsay’s performance work, Joan Tysinger’s videos, Alvaro Alvillar’s paintings, etc.).

But I would argue that in a broad sense that Atlanta’s recent wave of art in the public sphere (regardless of its quality or success) is fundamentally political in the way it seeks to create a new public space in Atlanta for a more diverse community where creativity is valued. A number of new arts organizations (WonderRoot, Living Walls or, really, even Flux Projects) think of themselves in some sense as doing activist work even if it’s not necessarily political in your sense.

In the AIDS era, much of the political art flowed out of a relationship with the theatrically potent activism of groups like ACT-UP, which featured slogans like “Silence=Death” and “Drugs into Bodies.” The political message had an urgency because the issues at stake were literally a matter of life and death. But the activism also focused on getting the government to take specific actions like increasing spending on AIDS research and getting new medicines quickly and affordably to people suffering.

The challenges and imagined solutions of our current moment seem messier, less clear to me. What would be today’s “Drugs Into Bodies” call to arms? Occupy Wall Street seems to me a kind of Howard Beale response to complex problems that our government has not addressed and probably will not address because of the thoroughly corrupting influences that control it. Saying you’re mad as hell and you’re not going to take it any longer is a healthy and long overdue response, but it’s just the first step. But as a first step, Occupy has at least accomplished what you would hope a successful art project could. It’s literally creating a space (including a media space) for conversations that otherwise don’t take place.

But there are all kinds of conversations that don’t take place in Atlanta that should. So I think the potential realm of the political here is actually fairly capacious.

Excellent points by Louise, Rocio, Louis and others. The Contemporary has been one of the leading venues for explicitly political art. Besides the examples cited by Louise (the current show) and Louis (Kane & Sudden), other examples off the top of my head: Paul Shambroom’s “Picturing Power”, “The American War” (based on Vietnamese museum’s perspective of what we call the Vietnam War), “Standard Operating Procedure” (Nubar Alexanian), Harry Shearer’s “The Silent Echo Chamber”, and Laura Poitras’s “Oh Say Can You See?”. Mark Wentzel’s “Morale Hazard” and Jack Whitten’s powerful 9-11 painting would also fit. And local galleries have shown us work with political resonance. Kiang’s showing of McCallum & Tarry, or various work by Larry Anderson, Nancy Floyd, or Radcliffe Bailey at Solomon come to mind. Or take a look at Ruth Laxson (at Marcia Wood) for evidence that we don’t have to wait on artists under 30 to produce superb art with political resonance (and a sense of humor!).

But, as several others have suggested, art that directly addresses what we think of as political controversies is only the most obvious sense in which art can be political (and I don’t mean to say that explicitly political art is always necessarily “obvious”, although sometimes it can be). The mere existence of nonprofit theatres, music ensembles, and visual arts institutions seems to threaten and disorient the Ayn Rand-worshiping libertarian right – which strikes me as yet another argument in favor of nonprofit arts institutions.

“…local artists today are strikingly uninterested in commenting on social issues.”
“There’s so much more work to do”Yeah, like maybe a certain “art critic” doing his job and actually recognizing artists that are in fact creating political art! Unless, of course, they aren’t in lock-step with your pov?

Not that I was looking for one, nor do I remember one, but, why would you apologize for “something very small and miniscule”? So heartfelt. And, you never met me either, so why would you do what you did to someone you never met? If you have something to say, say it! You obviously know how to contact me, as you clearly did after writing the above.