Referenced Artworks:
Robbie Conal, Contra Diction
When first addressing the question of art’s ability to function in the political sphere without being reduced to propaganda, I was conflicted on how I felt. In a previous class on contemporary art, I studied a lot of art that was politically charged. All of these works were held to the standard of high art; indeed many of these works I saw later on the walls of the Smithsonian and the National Gallery. Initially, I didn’t really see a problem or the potential for propaganda in art. At the onset, art was a completely separate sphere than propaganda in my mind. In my mind I thought of propaganda as specific calls to action, things that encouraged or degraded wars or political stances outright. I thought of crass, poorly put together things that told you that your political views were either right or wrong. I use the word thing because they were somewhere between plain statements on a page and art - they were drawings or paintings, yes, but they didn’t quite feel like art.
Political art, on the other hand, was a clear idea for me - or so I thought. It was the Napalm series Leon Golub created in response to the Vietnam war. It was Peter Saul’s Saigon. It was Guernica by Pablo Picasso. Pablo Picasso certainly would never create something so base as propaganda. These were works of art, they were masterful paintings that had depth - so much depth - and a clear display of talent. But I continued to contemplate these political works that I had encountered in this sphere of fine art. I found that alongside Picasso was Robbie Conal and forces such as the Art Workers Coalition. Now there is no denying the artistic capabilities that are evident in Robbie Conal’s works. However, there is also no denying that a large image of Ronald Reagan with the text “CONTRA DICTION” on it is clearly pointed and dare I say leaning far more towards the realm of propaganda. Just the same, the Art Workers Coalition took war images of dead children and plastered over it excerpts from an interview with an American war official in which he admits that babies were also massacred in My Lai, Vietnam. In this image, Q. And babies? A. And babies. there is a damning effect that can’t be misread. Upon reflecting on works like this that were clearly acknowledged and some even canonized as art, I began to question where exactly the line was drawn.
The readings which addressed this question started to clear up some of my issues. For me the most convicting and certainly most helpful arguments were that of Schiller; Schiller’s claims that art should be involved in politics helps to further my ideas of political art in fact being fine art. His ideas, however, that politics necessarily need art to further their goals initially bewildered me. Yet, I found that his claims, in their complexity, were in fact supporting my ideas on the political artwork. For example, Q. And babies? A. And babies. and Saigon both work to show and uncover political ideas and atrocities in a way that words simply could not. By giving an image and deeper meaning to these political situations, I feel that they do have a way of furthering a political cause. And in fact, they way in which they do it is so essential because it is distinct from and more universally resonant than political writing or statistics. Furthermore the part of his analysis which deals with the way things are and ought to be was particularly important to me. The way in which he ascribes art as the releasing or reconciliation of the tension between what things are and what things ought to be is key. In the political art I’ve mentioned so far, the artists are representing the way things are in order to highlight the problematic nature of it and imply the way things ought to be. Through Schiller’s analysis I found that there is certainly a place for political non-propaganda art.
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