a realistic and effective critical worldview starts from this standpoint.
7.5 Artistic quality is not something that can be judged independently of questions of class and the present balance of class forces because different classes have different values for art that imply different criteria of success [see theses 2, 3, 4].
7.6 Insofar as different class influences are at play in the visual arts, an artwork is never reducible to one meaning; quite often, artworks amount to compromises, attempting to resolve a number of different influences into a single artistic formula (a work might, for instance, be executed in a style that is attractive to art collectors, but also attempt to put an original professional signature on it and at the same time express some type of sincere political solidarity).
7.7 To state that every contemporary work of art will by definition be a product of contemporary society and thus bear the marks of the contradictions of its actual material situation does not imply that all art can be reduced to the same problem. Effective art criticism implies having a dynamic analysis of how specific aesthetic values are related to the present balance of forces and making a judgment with regard to what factors are playing the most crucial role at any given moment with any given work.
7.8 There is an aspect of taste that implies nothing political and is simply the product of personal experience and history (that is, there is no contradiction if two people have the same political analysis of the world but different aesthetic preferences). But such judgments are of secondary importance here. “I liked this” is a legitimate opinion, but it is not criticism that is serious, interesting, or useful.
7.9 Art criticism is not political because it imposes a political framework on contemporary art but because accurately representing art’s real situation implies understanding the dilemmas of middle-class creative labor in a capitalist world [see 3.8, 3.9] and, therefore, implies a political critique of that setup.
8.0 The relative strength of different values of art within the sphere of the visual arts is the product of a specific balance of class forces; there can be more or less progressive situations for contemporary art, even in a capitalist world, depending on the strengths of these different classes and what demands they are able to advance.
8.1 These demands, to be effective, should be organically connected to actual struggle—they cannot be an abstract program cooked up by a few and imposed as a program for art without any connection to actual movements within that sphere. Nevertheless, some provisional suggestions can be advanced, flowing from the analysis in the preceding theses. All of the following ideas have some support and expression, currently—the trick is to extend such initiatives to the point where they become more than purely symbolic gestures [thus fitting the criteria of 2.8] and are strong enough to shift the dominant values of art.
8.2 Above all, private capital has disproportionate influence on the visual arts; therefore, increased public funding for arts institutions can have the effect of reducing the intensity of the contradiction facing the visual arts.
8.3 Such institutions should be democratically accountable to the communities they serve, so as not to replicate the effect of top-down influence on art through bureaucratic directives; currently existing institutions should be made more democratic; institutions should pay the artists they exhibit, rather than exploiting artists’ professional aspirations by extracting free work from them.
8.4 Art’s current definition as a luxury good, or as the primary concern of a specific professional sphere, limits its full significance. Programs should be launched and supported that offer venues for artistic activity that are not necessarily aimed at the rich or already initiated.
8.5 Research and critical projects should be funded that investigate, explore, and support, on a large scale, alternative definitions and sites for creativity; “art” is not always produced by or for the market, a fact that should be a fundamental starting point (this involves transcending the “critique of the art market” paradigm, which assumes that the problem is simply making the market more democratic).
8.6 Contemporary art suffers from a narrow audience. Access to art education is largely (and increasingly) determined by income level and privilege; art education should be defended and made universal (this point itself involves a critique of the notion that art is a luxury).
8.7 There is no reason why the immense quantity of artistic talent that currently exists, unable to find purchase within the cramped confines of the professional “art world,” could not be put to work generalizing art education, thereby providing itself with a future audience.
8.8 This kind of common identity could form the basis for organizing artists as something more than individual agents, each working on a separate project; it therefore would also lay the foundation for a more organically political character for contemporary art.
8.9 Creative expression needs to be redefined. It should not be thought of as a privilege but as a basic human need. Because creative expression is a basic human need, it should be treated as a right to which everyone is entitled.
9.0 The sphere of the visual arts is an important symbolic site of struggle; however, because of its middle-class character, it has relatively little effective social power [4.5].
9.1 Achieving the reform objectives of thesis 8, therefore, entails that the sphere of the visual arts transcend itself and purely “art-world” concerns; such reforms will be best achieved by linking up with struggles outside of the sphere of the visual arts (for instance, linking the fight for art to the fight for education [8.6]).
9.2 Whatever these specific struggles are, it is an organized working class that is best placed to challenge dominant ruling-class relations [4.6], which is the precondition for challenging dominant ruling-class values of art and improving the situation of art.
9.3 The dual working-class values for “art” [4.8, 4.9]—as the subject of normal labor and as free expression in surplus of the demands of day-to-day labor—seem to imply a contradiction; this contradiction, however, is based on the current economic setup, in which a ruling-class minority dictates the conditions of work.
9.4 Such a contradiction is transcended in a situation in which laborers democratically control the character of their own labor, and, consequently, the terms of their own leisure; it is only such a state of affairs that offers the potential for the maximum flourishing of human artistic potential.
9.5 It is toward such a perspective, which involves changing the material basis of society, that those who care about art should turn. In the absence of such a perspective in the sphere of the visual arts, its representatives will turn in circles, responding to the same problems without ever arriving at a solution. Art’s situation will remain fraught and contradictory; its full potential will remain unrealized.
Art and Politics
Trevor Paglen, N5177C at Gold Coast Terminal, Las Vegas, NV, Distance ~ 1 mile
C-Print, 40 x 50 inches, 2007. Courtesy of the artist.
THREE
What Good Is Political Art in Times Like These?
It is one thing to argue about the relationship between art and politics when social movements are at a low tide, when political struggle is episodic or mainly defensive—as it has been for the last three decades or so. But it is quite another to take up the question when there are movements in the streets, when political struggle is back on the agenda. Who knows what the future may hold, but one can at least seize the moment to look at the question again,
