Art is politics. An extraordinary number of musicians and artists have used their prominent positions to influence people to make educated decisions in this year’s election. They are loud and colorful. Artists, I have come to realize, are granted the unique right to examine today’s America, select elements of significance and openly pick them apart. By incorporating political opinions into their work, they allow the audience to make inferences and inspire discussion.
This could not be more apparent than in a photography project entitled ‘Democracy’ by Richard Avedon, printed in this week’s issue of the New Yorker. Over 50 portraits in a medley of black and white or color raise questions about what democracy means and how individuals represent it through their various careers, choices, clothes and mannerisms. The images speak for themselves: Sergeant Joseph Washam, his face covered in third degree burns, looks out from eyes that have truly seen hell. The juxtapositions scream even louder: an image of Jon Stewart with a mockingly wrinkled brow is placed next to Karl Rove’s equally contrived, smug grin.
Despite the impressively broad range of characters and the sheer beauty of the portfolio, what has most inspired me—which I think is the purpose—is how people react to these portraits and the conversations they have fostered. Their personal opinions about democracy come to the surface as they are faced with the images.
Avedon —who passed away working on the project on Oct. 1 at the age of 81—was not new to defining ‘democracy’ through photographs. Throughout his career he used photography to criticize and celebrate hundreds of individuals from businessmen to civil rights activists to artists to nobody’s. Through a critical lens Avedon captured Robert Oppenheimer who developed the atomic bomb and Major Claude Eatherly who helped drop it on Hiroshima. Through his poignant photographs Avedon asks hard questions but allows his viewer to think about the answers. Art is political.
Everyday we are faced with photographs or TV clips of President Bush and Senator Kerry. Politics are expressed through the media of art, but in the context of news. Here we focus on words chosen by journalists and analysis by individuals trained to be non-biased. Yet every choice can be seen as a biased representation or shaping of fact. Thus, it can be said that politics is artistic.
This past week Eminem released a music video entitled “Eminem’s Mosh” online through “Guerilla News Network.” In this black and white cartoon tale, the musician walks through a dark street and is slowly joined by various people whom politics have left behind, such as a single mother with an eviction notice. Flashes of newspaper headlines about deaths in Iraq and President Bush’s face circled in red are repeated on screen as Eminem raps, “I give sight to the blind, insight through the mind. I exercise my right to express what I feel when it’s time, it’s just all in your mind what you interpret it as.” Through the images and the song, Eminem expresses politics through a medium that the younger generation can understand. His choice to express his views publicly speaks to the importance of the moment. Using his power as a famous, controversial musician he says in the video, “Come along follow me as I lead through the darkness as I provide just enough spark that we need to proceed, carry on, give me hope, give me strength. Come with me and I won’t steer you wrong put your faith and your trust as I got us through the fall to the light at the end of the tunnel, we gonna fight.”
Once given or, some might argue, taking the power to influence people, artists at times have gone too far. Artists playing a political role can, at times, have trouble separating the difference between using one’s art to speak one’s opinion, and simply using the stage to force political views upon their audiences. Such confusion tends to cross the line and leave people feeling uncomfortable or alienated. At a recent Wilco concert, the lead singer Jeff Tweedy stood on stage and told fans to vote. This, I thought, was a productive sentiment. Then he said something to the effect of ‘and if you are going to vote for Bush, than you should go see a psychiatrist.’ In my mind, this was an unacceptable way to exert the power of the artist. Instead of allowing his music to express the same sentiment, he preached to the audience. This was not why I went to the concert.
Furthering the role of art as a productive expression of politics, it is important to note that Rolling Stone endorsed Senator John Kerry in its November issue. In an interview-style format John Kerry talks about policy and the election in his normal, intelligent manner; but, at the end, he speaks of war movies such as The Deer Hunter and the music of Bruce Springsteen. Explaining how Vietnam films created awareness about the war, Kerry himself understands the ways in which art can speak the language of politics.
Yet we must remember that politics is art. Candidates are sculpted to represent America. Their every choice and every word is selected with the utmost care because it is understood that a candidate’s every action will become part of his own portrait. If Kerry orders bottled water instead of drinking tap water than this choice says something about his image. If Bush reads a children’s book upside down this action speaks for his person. The opposition has as much of a role in snapping the portrait, TV ads and sound bites frame Kerry as a “flip-flopper” and Bush as a “failure.” Debates become rehearsed theatrical events the candidates have memorized their lines and practiced their motions. Every speech, every handshake and every suit is carefully scrutinized before it reaches the public. Politics is art.
Richard Avedon’s ‘Democracy’ is in the Nov. 1 issue of The New Yorker and can be found at Olin.
“Eminem’s Mosh” can be found at http://www.gnn.tv/content/eminem_mosh.html
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