In his latest book, Blue Ruin, author Hari Kunzru explores the role of art and the artist in society. Jay, the central character, rejects the commodification of art, and reflects: “I knew I had to work in vain, in a way that wasn’t about accumulation or achievement. I realized that my work—and not just my work, everyone’s work, the work of all artists—was an alibi for the desire to put a frame around a certain part of life, to declare that inside the frame was art, and outside was not.” I wondered what an art would look like that didn’t sit inside a frame, that bled out into life’s messiness and uncertainty, art that didn’t have a border.”
Life as art. Art as life. The artist as channel.
And then there is the question, as a friend and I discussed yesterday, of art as political activism. In the past few years, I have read many interviews by writers excoriating other writers for not taking opinions on certain issues and writing about them.
But, can art actually affect the course of history? Go beyond personal rantings and mobilize forces toward a particular goal?
Interestingly enough, the most influential Russian book of all time is NOT Anna Karenina, or War and Peace or even Crime and Punishment, but rather philosopher and journalist Nikolai Cherneshevsky’s 1863 political novel, What is to be Done? This book influenced the generation that lit the spark that became the flame that became the Russian Revolution.
So, yes, art can affect the course of history.
But, this is beginning to sound a bit like Soviet Socialist Realism to me – art as a tool of the State OR some greater philosophical agenda, which if you don’t share you are a bad bad person and will get kicked out of the club. We call that being cancelled now. I’ve even heard a recent term—being guillotined.
Can art just be art for art’s sake?
And do any of these questions even matter, when wars are being waged? When elections are looming? When so many feel powerless at the hands of very powerful and dangerous leaders?
I think it does matter. Because, art is not a monolith. It is not political or apolitical. It is whatever the artist, writer, dancer, painter, observer, wants it to be. Needs it to be. A friend shared a beautiful thought she’d heard on a podcast that art helps us make life in the making of art. So…
Art is activism.
Art is therapy.
Art is pure fun.
Art is distraction.
Art is a wake-up call.
Art is art.
So, whatever your reality is today, whether you are in a warzone, or struggling with loss, or depressed, or happy or bored or whatever…art is always there, and it’s where I have always turned when I have experienced all of the above scenarios.
And it never let me down.
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