What is political art? Is it different than the art itself and could it be the art beside the politics, as we know the political truth is the ruling mechanism over all aspects of humanity? From its beginnings, art is inseparable from the societies and throughout its history authors always reflected the present moment bringing the artistic truth to the general public. For Plato and Aristotle, mimesis - the act of artistic creation is inseparable from the notion of real world, in which art represents or rather disputes the various models of beauty, truth, and the good within the societal reality.
Hence, position of the art sphere is semi-autonomous, as it is independent field of creation freed from the rules, function and norms, but on the other hand, art world is deeply connected and dependent from artistic production, ways of curating and display as well as socio-economical conditions and political context.
The Realm of Political Art
In times of big political changes, many art and cultural workers choose to reflect the context within their artistic practices and consequently to create politically and socially engaged art. Art could be connected to politics in many different ways, and the field of politically engaged art is rather broad and rich than a hom*ogenous term reducible to political propaganda. There are many strategies to reach the state of political engagement in art and it includes the wide scale of artistic interventions from bare gestures to complex conceptual pieces with direct political engagement intended to factual political changes. But when disputing politically engaged art, we must not forget that art is not and could not be the mere means of political action nor reduced to this specific function; although it could be an active part of activist practice.
Beyond the Aestheticization of the Politics
In the 20th century, the aestheticization of the politics was heavily criticized as a try to conceive regular practices of life and societal behavior as innately artistic, and to introduce politic values to art, by structuring it as an art form in order to normalize emancipatory or revolutionary practices and enclose it to the autonomous field of art. This was the concept first coined by Walter Benjamin and later developed in the thought of Frankfurt School. It was also the philosophical reaction to the appropriation of the art by the Fascist regimes in Europe. In the light of this theory, the polar opposite of these practices of aestheticization would be the term of the politicization of aesthetics – a kind of revolutionary praxis of rethinking the depoliticized field of art production and adding the wider political or rather an emancipatory character to the art work.
Liberation of Art
The main idea behind the liberating art from the corrupting politic movements such as Fascism, Nazism or any other reductive and destructive social agenda, is to reclaim its autonomy once again. For any artistic work is crucial to be free from the function and especially transgressing its subordinate position when art is reduced to the political tool of ruling mechanism. The very act of negation or disagreement with the negative or harmful within the politics is crucial for understanding the core value of political artists and the politically engaged art in whole. As artistic practice is the act of creation, intervention into the body of real world, art, as a form of social action, is a very mighty tool of the political imagination, by (re)presenting the world, not in a sudden, but in some further or better condition.
Political Role of Art
When questioning the role of art today, we must be aware of the illusive borders between art and life, art and media, art and society, as well as art and activism. In so many cases of artist works, it is hard to formulate not just the notion of art but even its position within the society. In contemporary societies, it is important to abandon the romantic visions of art’s mission, but at the same time to insist on the constant questioning dominant politics within the art, maintaining and fight for the inherent artistic freedom of speech and expression. The role of political art has always been crucial since it is one of rare uncorrupted forces of emancipatory action and battlefield of the crucial dispute what is and what could be beauty, truth, and the good.
Influential Political Artworks
In the course of art history there are many examples art was the crucial reflection of political context. Moreover, analyzing and disputing the art pieces, we learn about life and circ*mstances from which we are far away in space or time. The art pieces were critical or undue to the dominant values of its time, we often understood as a political avant-garde, the announcement of the political changes that followed. Here, we would like to present different politically engaged art works, trying to display the wide specter of political action within the field of art, without pitfall of losing the art qualities and becoming the political agenda itself. The selection we made addresses the questions of wars and political conflicts, rise of fascism, revolution and social change, as well as human rights activism, feminism, autonomy of art or various problems of artistic production and work itself. Methodologies, media or artistic strategies are numerous in political art and proving that politically committed artworks and the work of political artists in general is not reducible to propaganda.
Featured images:Norman Rockwell - The Problem We All Live With, 1964; Pablo Picasso - Massacre in Korea, 1950; Dmitri Vrubel - The Kiss, 1990; Banksy - Flower thrower, 2003; Ai Weiwei – With Flowers, 2013; Yoko Ono – Sky Landing, 2016.
Vladimir Tatlin - The Monument to the Third International from 1917
Tatlin's Constructivist tower was planned to be the moving sculpture of the Revolution, the dynamic metaphor of uprising the modernity, revolutionary thinking and the new world order. Besides its monumental and poetic value, the structure should have architectural functions and could have been used for conferences and different governmental functions. Due to economic crash in post-revolutionary Russia, the Monument to the Third International has been never built but its smaller size models are situated in Stockholm, Moscow and Paris.
Featured image: Vladimir Tatlin - The Monument to the Third International, 1917
Diego Rivera - Man at the Crossroads from 1934
Man at the Crossroads was a mural by Diego Rivera in the Rockefeller Center, New York. The process of painting and the life of the fresco painting itself raised a big controversy since Rivera included images of V.I. Lenin and motifs of a Soviet Russian May Day parade on it. Despite protests from artists, Nelson Rockefeller ordered the destruction of this political artwork before it was completed. There are only a few black and white photos of the finished paintings, photographed by the artist himself.
Featured image: Diego Rivera - Man at the Crossroads, 1934, detail
Max Ernst - Europe After the Rain from 1940-42
Europe After the Rain is surrealistic landscape of dystopian Europe after the enormous destruction in Second World War, painted by Max Ernst who was personally affected by the Nazi politics in Germany. The paysage is dominated by pessimist feelings of emotional desolation, physical exhaustion and deep fears, which are rather archetypal concern over the humanity than just actual reflection on war horror.
Featured image: Max Ernst – Europe After the Rain, 1940-1942, detail
Peter Kien - Watercolor of Terezin from 1944
Concentration camps are always considered as the epitome of the war horror. Jewish artist Peter Kien was imprisoned in Terezin, where he used stolen artistic materials to witness the living conditions in the Terezin ghetto. A true example of political art, his artworks transgress the field of art, being one of the most important documents recalling the truth on a concentration camp and the inhuman conditions of inmates. In 1944, the same year he painted the Watercolor of Terezin, Kien was deported in Auschwitz, where being brutally killed at the age of twenty-five.
Featured image: Peter Kien - Watercolor of Terezin c1944, detail via azdaily
Pablo Picasso - Massacre in Korea from 1950
Pablo Picasso was the heavy critic of the American war intervention in Korea, so the painting Massacre in Korea is often considered as one of Picasso’s communist works and an example of his political art. The artworks posses strong reflection of one of the first paintings of the new age - Francisco Goya's masterpiece The Third of May 1808 from which it derives the political statement comparing the American forces in North Korea with the imperialistic Napoleon army, Tyrant of Europe. The artist openly depicted civilians killed by anti-communist forces as heroes standing erect and mocked the misshaped firing squad.
Take a time to check more works by Pablo Picasso!
Featured image: Pablo Picasso - Massacre In Korea, 1951, detail via thecahokian
Norman Rockwell - The Problem We All Live With from 1964
Norman Rockwell’s painting The Problem We All Live With is directly addressing the racism in America and the universality of the people being affected with these harmful politics. The painting reflects the real fact that the African-American girl was escorted on her way to elementary school by four US marshals, walking in front of the protesters in 1960 at New Orleans. Racist graffiti, limited freedom of movement, racial segregation at schools were the reality of the American south in 1960s so the artist raise a voice against it and made this important and influential political artwork.
Featured image: Norman Rockwell - The Problem We All Live With, 1964, detail
Barbara Kruger - We don't need another hero from 1987
Conceptual artistBarbara Kruger, is best known by subversive design work concerningconsumerism, feminismand womenidentitypolitics.We don't need another hero in one of the main examples of her reduced agitpropstyle, with use of black and white photography, red banners and a single bold font, where Kruger reflects the gender roles imposed from the earliest age. This political art piece strongly recall popular 1985 song by Tina Turner, also featured in blockbuster movie Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
Featured image: Barbara Kruger - We don't need another hero, 1987
Guerilla Girls - Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum? from 1989
The Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous group of female feminist artistsand art-world professionals in 1989 placed the poster illustrating the statistic data that less than 5% of artists included in Modern Art Sections were female, but more than 85% nudes are women. Do women need to be naked to get into the Met. Museum get a big echo in the world of art, since it make people rethink the consequences of exclusively male gaze on women body in the dominant art canon.
Featured image: Guerilla Girls - Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum? 1989, detail
Dmitri Vrubel - The Kiss from 1990
The world famous graffiti at the Berlin wall, originally named My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love, but also known as The Kiss, The Kiss of Death or the Fraternal Kiss is depiction of a historical kiss between Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker at the ceremony of the foundation of the German Democratic Republic. It is interesting that the graffiti was created by Dmitri Vrubel in 1990s after the Berlin wall was down and it reflecting the continuation of the politics from the cold war era in the time of changes.
Featured image: Dmitri Vrubel - The Kiss, 1990, photo detail via disappearingman
Banksy - Flower Thrower from 2003
Flower Thrower is one of the most iconic images of the famous street artist Banksy. The stencil art piece depicts the man, bombing the establishment with flowers. The image is reminiscent of images from the 1960s campus and street riots and it is connected to the Jerusalem gay parade incidents. The name originates from a Poem “Wage Peace” by Judyth Hill, written after the events of 9/11 in 2001.
Find available artworks by Banksy on Widewalls marketplace!
Featured image: Banksy - Flower Thrower, 2003
JR - Face2Face project in Gaza from 2007
In 2007, two street artists JR and Marco organized the largest illegal photography exhibition ever under the project Face 2 Face. At the streets in several Palestinian and Israeli cities, the artists placed the portraits of Israelis and Palestinians as face to face, in large formats. In conflicted zones, this project brings unavoidable identification and humor while looking at series of laughing people separated only by their national and religious affiliation, but united in humanity.
Featured image: JR - Face2Face project in Gaza, 2007, photo
Shepard Fairey - HOPE poster from 2008
The Hope was created in 2008 as grassroots imagery and at the time it said ‘progress’ but after the Obama’s campaign team fancied the work, it was changed to 'hope', and become the unofficial visual of the elections. Shepard Fairey is an American contemporary street artist, graphic designer, activist, illustrator who inscribed the political statement of the expected progress and hope in United States in 2008, within this effective propaganda poster. After many years, it becomes a document on the political positions of the people as well as their unrealized hopes.
Be sure to check out an interesting selection of works by Shepard Fairey!
Featured images: Shepard Fairey - PROGRESS poster, 2008; Shepard Fairey - HOPE poster, 2008
Terry Richardson - Portraits of President Barack Obama from 2012
As a first African-American US president, Barack Obama was the endless source of inspiration for artists, who frequently inscribe their emancipatory politics into his figure. In his series of portraits, Terry Richardson tried the counter strategy – to liberate the celeb face of the president from the symbolic and to fit his appearance into own pop culture aesthetics.
Featured image: Terry Richardson - Barrack Obama, 2012
Ai Weiwei - With Flowers from 2013
With Flowers is a part-protest part-performance art piece of the famous Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei, started as a reaction against the confiscation of his passport. The artist placed a bouquet of flowers in the basket of a bicycle in front of his studio in Beijing and action of endured for about 600 days. Ai started the performance on November 13, 2013, more than two years into his confinement.
Featured image: Ai Weiwei - With Flowers, 2013
Yoko Ono - Sky Landing from 2016
Sky Landing in the Garden of the Phoenix in Jackson Park in Chicago is the first permanent installation in Americas by the famous conceptual artist Yoko Ono. Sky Landing is created as a symbolic gesture of peace, harmony and healing. In her concept Yoko stated “I want the sky to land here, to cool it, and make it well again”.
Featured image: Yoko Ono - Sky Landing, 2016
