Steve Lambert and Stephen Duncombe, An Open Letter to Critics Writing About Political Art

Citation: Duncombe, Stephen and Steve Lambert. “An Open Letter to Critics Writing About Political Art.”  Artisticactivism.org. Center for Artistic Activism, 20 Oct. 2012. Web. 20 Oct. 2012.

Summary:

This blog written by the two co-directors of the Center for Artistic Activism illustrates what they believe to be the 7 questions necessary for critics to ask when evaluating a work of political art. They wrote these steps out of necessity, believing that so little criticism revolves around political due to the fact that there hasn’t been a language developed to do so. For those unfamiliar with political art these questions are great guidelines to know what effective political art sets out to do, and many of the questions are things that any artist—operating with a political agenda or not—should ask themselves. 

Response:

Although the tone of this blog post was self-righteous and condescending, I appreciated reading it for I am not a political artist and I don’t plan on becoming one. There were a few things I found to be compelling about the practice of the political artist as illustrated in these seven questions. In the first question, Does it Work? The authors bring up a common shortcoming of art claiming to be political art, art “which uses social injustice and political subject matter: making these forces objects for contemplation, and perversely, appreciation.” This referenced something I have been thinking a lot about, as I have been recently questioning everything about myself as an artist, fearing that my art does not achieve anything of social relevance or play any part in a bigger picture…but for now I don’t think that my work has to. For now, I’d rather stick to the path I’m on, continue to work hard and find out who I am in the process so that I do not resort to making half-baked art with a half-baked social or political commentary that fails in the sense that it would result in perverse appreciation and nothing more. I’d rather make art that affects people on a smaller, more intimate, sincere, honest, romantic, playful, whimsical and fantastical level— things I think are disappearing—than on some grand scale, which I am not capable of doing at this point in my career. The other thing I found to be stimulating was the fifth question, What Kind of Mastery is Required?, which criticizes fine artists and how they are shallowly “often rewarded for the degree of control and mastery over their medium” and how they are often unwilling to compromise on their use of materials for fear that that would be “diluting their vision,” which I found to be an extreme generalization, but which nevertheless references the question, what material will most convey your message? Again, a question all artists should be asking themselves. In this question they also bring up the fair and insightful critique that “the venue for the traditional artist is galleries and museums—controlled spaces where the art does not speak very loudly because all attention is focused on it…political art, responding to this space, is often brash and loud.” Again, since I am not a political artist I do not feel as if my work needs to be brash and loud in order to be effective or get attention, but this critique of the traditional gallery space and traditional gallery display is something of much consideration.

 From this article I received new insight on the functioning and concerns of political art, and about art making in general. I am happy with the fact that at this point in the semester I am able to read theory on art, and in result take and leave what I want from it.