Personally, That belief that art is supposed to change people's minds sounds like such a fucking Lib take. So according to your opinion artists are like NGO's; out there to fix the wrongs of the system; Does this mean that by the same logic bad art causes these wrongs? This is the mindset that has us deep in this hellworld in the first place! This American obsession with art and entertainment as propaganda or art as some magical way to spark political action. In the end it just becomes another manufactured consumer identity: "Oh i listen to Zack de la Rocha so i'm very fucking revolutionary" "Hey man i'm morally upright because i watch all the morally upright saturday morning cartoons!" PfffT! I don't care about your fandoms!
This is the mindset that makes people in careers like liberal arts end up so damn bitter: They spend their whole lives making art thinking that they are sparking political action without ever really organizing any real political action; until they realize that the groups of power they are rising against are the ones funding them. I even remember a quote from Contemporary artist Betsabèe Romero: "if the groups in power felt challenged by political art, they would not be the patrons of leftist political art." The failed sons of millionaires love that shit too; They spend a lot of money in their manufactured identities! Leftist Political Contemporary art is a Fandom for Rich consumers!
This is my number one critique to contemporary political art as a matter of fact! Everybody focuses on the fact that it's not high skilled paintings, or marble sculptures... If chuds really wanted to strike a killing blow into leftist contemporary art; They merely have to point out that it has been failing It's mission since the 60's and that the people they are rising against are their most rabid fanboys and that the most academic segment of it, just ends up being a very incomplete illustration of the theory it's trying to educate it's audience on. It gets worse, when political art steals the spotlight from real political action; or when blaming the media is convenient enough to ignore the truer, more difficult to solve systemic issues. Conservatives have been doing that since the sixties it works!
(But that's waayy too nuanced a critique for a CHUD. Or for most people. Working class people don't go to museums, it's a rich person's fandom.)
And what about pop art? What about illustration, comics, videogames and media? I remember a long tradition of people that consume very leftist leaning media and just disregard or distort the message. Fuck it, i like a lot of very Chud media myself and couldn't care less about the message; S. Craig Zahler makes some right leaning movies that rebel in this idea of the "politically incorrect" And i feel it's almost childishly cute that he might think a normal person will watch them and instantly go: "maann maybe Mexicans are Drug dealers and rapists!" Do Americans even need to hear that in a movie? Both Biden and Trump have said that! i hear that slipped in chat conversations in Cy Tube Channels all the time, and believe me they are not talking about the movie. Americans don't like their Jingoism because their movies said so; Their system effectively uses jingoism for profit! Always had! Jingoistic art is just the byproduct of the culture; if there's any hope today in changing anything it's not because Black Panther is a Black Superhero; It's because shit is so bad today, people are starting to take action! And i feel the only circumstances that make people consistently take action or even question the way they live is when shit gets bad.
I've heard countless takes like the one the chapos did on Avatar, or Starship Troopers or Robocop. And it's always the same schlock: "No really, the movie is actually about this leftist message. It's a movie against fascism, or against capitalism!" And most people just don't care. The average consumer doesn't read that deep, or reads what they want to hear. Some very refined art costumers just focus on the parts of the product they like. There's people that buy movies for the cinematography alone even if they hate the script for example! And just look at Jordan Peterson with his house full of communist propaganda posters!
This heavy politicization of pop art only started because politics is just another fandom now. It's another manufactured identity. People are ready to rave about the guys on their side of politics, but they are not ready to hold them to standard. For most: It's about being a fan and a fan wants to consume products; they want to spend money on art that confirms their biases, that has their logo on it, that signals their lifestyle.
And that's cool if you are into it.
But again. I personally don't care about your fandom.
Do you think your take changes when it's art produced under a Socialist system. I mean, the Soviets were pretty big on the "Classical" arts, and Chinese Revolutionary Ballets are actually pretty good, and Everyone knew them. Avant Garde artists like Brecht thrived with politically charged art.
Is it possible that working class people don't go to museums because they've been told it isn't their museum?
Well If you look at art history; It is consistent that the dominant culture manufactures it's own aesthetics; I think this goes in line with what Felix Guattari Talks about in his Book "Cartographies of desire" In that a dominant system manufactures Its own "subjectivity" or "Ideology" (if you prefer your Slavoj Zizekisms) And art could be see as part of this Subjectivity or ideology itself. But it doesn't go the other way around, it is rare that art manufactures the system, it's supportive, runs in parallel just like ideology.
BUUUT There's a big but. Guattari also mentions in the same book, that an emergent revolutionary ideology can spawn emergent art. this is also consistent with the times where big political shifts or even bloody revolutions spawned new ways to understand art: Just look at how Academic "Rococo" painting Made way for very political french realism, and later expressionism as aristocrats lost power to the bourgeoisie.
But my take still stands; in these examples the shift is not spawned on the arts themselves but in the political action that organizes political systems. The art is a byproduct of the overall ideology; There are examples in art history where an artist is so far ahead ideologically speaking that they get ignored. Nobody likes them at their time and they later get rescued by history and enjoyed by later generations. It's really sad, but the thing about "being in the right place in the right time" also stands for being "on par with the dominant ideology" Even if that ideology is a coming revolution. The stories about artists from failed revolutions are very sad! And it's good to read on them, even just to become aware of our Survivorship bias.
The issue with art and media on contemporary capitalistic systems is that their control over their aesthetics is different from regimes such as the Soviet Union: There is no state sponsored aesthetics (mostly), but instead the illusion of the invisible hand of capitalism is pushed. People call this "freedom" but it's just more subtle control. Capital diverts funds to co-opt and control the creative forces of the system; aesthetics are "assimilated," "disneyfied," "neutered." Turned into consumer products and rendered as ideologically neutral as possible, with the exception of course that it should be accessory to capitalistic ideology. There are no dangerous arts in capitalism, only "niche products" I feel censorship in the arts and media under capitalism tends to follow different criteria than in past states.
But what happens when people try to find alternative ways to organize and survive? What happens when people get together and try to live under new ideology, new ways to live and this makes way for mechanisms to allow them to manufacture their own subjectivity? That's a very real threat! I think a lot of people here knows that when people search for real practical alternatives, they mysteriously get snuffed out immediately. (Are you reading this CIA?)
I am almost certain, that if one of those new systems are allowed to flourish; they would create new different art that we have never seen before. Because their creativity is nourished by entirely different values.
In this sense i don't think that art is entirely useless; To imagine new things has the potential to create new things, But it won't be the spark, it's just part of the cultural movement, My main worry would be, we have a lot of products today, but very little "movement"
I agree that art is not something that drives changes in foundational material conditions.
I do think art has a role in creating and stabilising/destabilising cultural superstructure downstream of the material conflict though, if it didn't there would be no point to "Disneyfying" it.
And of course there's a role for art as a spark for tactical praxis, the Belgian Revolution being sparked by the Night at the Opera, for example.
Personally, That belief that art is supposed to change people's minds sounds like such a fucking Lib take. So according to your opinion artists are like NGO's; out there to fix the wrongs of the system; Does this mean that by the same logic bad art causes these wrongs? This is the mindset that has us deep in this hellworld in the first place! This American obsession with art and entertainment as propaganda or art as some magical way to spark political action. In the end it just becomes another manufactured consumer identity: "Oh i listen to Zack de la Rocha so i'm very fucking revolutionary" "Hey man i'm morally upright because i watch all the morally upright saturday morning cartoons!" PfffT! I don't care about your fandoms!
This is the mindset that makes people in careers like liberal arts end up so damn bitter: They spend their whole lives making art thinking that they are sparking political action without ever really organizing any real political action; until they realize that the groups of power they are rising against are the ones funding them. I even remember a quote from Contemporary artist Betsabèe Romero: "if the groups in power felt challenged by political art, they would not be the patrons of leftist political art." The failed sons of millionaires love that shit too; They spend a lot of money in their manufactured identities! Leftist Political Contemporary art is a Fandom for Rich consumers!
This is my number one critique to contemporary political art as a matter of fact! Everybody focuses on the fact that it's not high skilled paintings, or marble sculptures... If chuds really wanted to strike a killing blow into leftist contemporary art; They merely have to point out that it has been failing It's mission since the 60's and that the people they are rising against are their most rabid fanboys and that the most academic segment of it, just ends up being a very incomplete illustration of the theory it's trying to educate it's audience on. It gets worse, when political art steals the spotlight from real political action; or when blaming the media is convenient enough to ignore the truer, more difficult to solve systemic issues. Conservatives have been doing that since the sixties it works!
(But that's waayy too nuanced a critique for a CHUD. Or for most people. Working class people don't go to museums, it's a rich person's fandom.)
And what about pop art? What about illustration, comics, videogames and media? I remember a long tradition of people that consume very leftist leaning media and just disregard or distort the message. Fuck it, i like a lot of very Chud media myself and couldn't care less about the message; S. Craig Zahler makes some right leaning movies that rebel in this idea of the "politically incorrect" And i feel it's almost childishly cute that he might think a normal person will watch them and instantly go: "maann maybe Mexicans are Drug dealers and rapists!" Do Americans even need to hear that in a movie? Both Biden and Trump have said that! i hear that slipped in chat conversations in Cy Tube Channels all the time, and believe me they are not talking about the movie. Americans don't like their Jingoism because their movies said so; Their system effectively uses jingoism for profit! Always had! Jingoistic art is just the byproduct of the culture; if there's any hope today in changing anything it's not because Black Panther is a Black Superhero; It's because shit is so bad today, people are starting to take action! And i feel the only circumstances that make people consistently take action or even question the way they live is when shit gets bad.
I've heard countless takes like the one the chapos did on Avatar, or Starship Troopers or Robocop. And it's always the same schlock: "No really, the movie is actually about this leftist message. It's a movie against fascism, or against capitalism!" And most people just don't care. The average consumer doesn't read that deep, or reads what they want to hear. Some very refined art costumers just focus on the parts of the product they like. There's people that buy movies for the cinematography alone even if they hate the script for example! And just look at Jordan Peterson with his house full of communist propaganda posters!
This heavy politicization of pop art only started because politics is just another fandom now. It's another manufactured identity. People are ready to rave about the guys on their side of politics, but they are not ready to hold them to standard. For most: It's about being a fan and a fan wants to consume products; they want to spend money on art that confirms their biases, that has their logo on it, that signals their lifestyle.
And that's cool if you are into it.
But again. I personally don't care about your fandom.
Do you think your take changes when it's art produced under a Socialist system. I mean, the Soviets were pretty big on the "Classical" arts, and Chinese Revolutionary Ballets are actually pretty good, and Everyone knew them. Avant Garde artists like Brecht thrived with politically charged art.
Is it possible that working class people don't go to museums because they've been told it isn't their museum?
Well If you look at art history; It is consistent that the dominant culture manufactures it's own aesthetics; I think this goes in line with what Felix Guattari Talks about in his Book "Cartographies of desire" In that a dominant system manufactures Its own "subjectivity" or "Ideology" (if you prefer your Slavoj Zizekisms) And art could be see as part of this Subjectivity or ideology itself. But it doesn't go the other way around, it is rare that art manufactures the system, it's supportive, runs in parallel just like ideology.
BUUUT There's a big but. Guattari also mentions in the same book, that an emergent revolutionary ideology can spawn emergent art. this is also consistent with the times where big political shifts or even bloody revolutions spawned new ways to understand art: Just look at how Academic "Rococo" painting Made way for very political french realism, and later expressionism as aristocrats lost power to the bourgeoisie.
But my take still stands; in these examples the shift is not spawned on the arts themselves but in the political action that organizes political systems. The art is a byproduct of the overall ideology; There are examples in art history where an artist is so far ahead ideologically speaking that they get ignored. Nobody likes them at their time and they later get rescued by history and enjoyed by later generations. It's really sad, but the thing about "being in the right place in the right time" also stands for being "on par with the dominant ideology" Even if that ideology is a coming revolution. The stories about artists from failed revolutions are very sad! And it's good to read on them, even just to become aware of our Survivorship bias.
The issue with art and media on contemporary capitalistic systems is that their control over their aesthetics is different from regimes such as the Soviet Union: There is no state sponsored aesthetics (mostly), but instead the illusion of the invisible hand of capitalism is pushed. People call this "freedom" but it's just more subtle control. Capital diverts funds to co-opt and control the creative forces of the system; aesthetics are "assimilated," "disneyfied," "neutered." Turned into consumer products and rendered as ideologically neutral as possible, with the exception of course that it should be accessory to capitalistic ideology. There are no dangerous arts in capitalism, only "niche products" I feel censorship in the arts and media under capitalism tends to follow different criteria than in past states.
But what happens when people try to find alternative ways to organize and survive? What happens when people get together and try to live under new ideology, new ways to live and this makes way for mechanisms to allow them to manufacture their own subjectivity? That's a very real threat! I think a lot of people here knows that when people search for real practical alternatives, they mysteriously get snuffed out immediately. (Are you reading this CIA?)
I am almost certain, that if one of those new systems are allowed to flourish; they would create new different art that we have never seen before. Because their creativity is nourished by entirely different values.
In this sense i don't think that art is entirely useless; To imagine new things has the potential to create new things, But it won't be the spark, it's just part of the cultural movement, My main worry would be, we have a lot of products today, but very little "movement"
We also have very little new "philosophy"
I agree that art is not something that drives changes in foundational material conditions.
I do think art has a role in creating and stabilising/destabilising cultural superstructure downstream of the material conflict though, if it didn't there would be no point to "Disneyfying" it.
And of course there's a role for art as a spark for tactical praxis, the Belgian Revolution being sparked by the Night at the Opera, for example.