Pretentious Answer: Most Definitely Yes
Well, good art is…but to me, all art has some level of merit and by my estimation good…except maybe AI art but we don’t need to get into all that right now. Also, the use of the word all up there is a generalization, there’s always a corner case, an exception that proves the rule. Even bad art has something to say. I meditate on art in my books quite a bit. My current series ponders the question of what if the artists were the ones in charge. Would they fall into the trappings of power just like everyone else? Could they be driven to do bad things in the name of the greater good? Probably. But I digress, I see a lot of pretentious people in the discourse saying that all art is political. I see it most in reference to musicians, in response to why they have to be political. What do people mean when they say all art is political? Let’s see if we can figure it out.
The first thing that comes to mind if you take the sentiment at face value is that every piece of art is trying to send some kind of political message. We know this can’t be true. A photographer taking a picture of a rustic barn is generally not trying to make a statement, well, unless it ends up being part of a show about decay or the corporate takeover of farming in this country. But what if it’s just a barn? The person painting flowers couldn’t possibly be trying to say something. Unless of course, they use colors that are singularly red or blue, or maybe they used the colors of the rainbow. But maybe they’re just flowers. Maybe it’s a musician just writing about their dog or their truck and trying to create a vibe. Maybe it’s a vibe that takes the listener back to a simpler time when everything wasn’t so divided. Maybe in that time, people had less rights than they do now. Surely the kid who is just painting their mom, dad, dog, house, and car isn’t trying to say anything political. Maybe they are painting the “American Dream.” An idea that might be past its prime. Maybe it doesn’t necessarily need to be the intention of the artist to make something political maybe the consumer of art has just as much role in that.
There are people out there who get upset when the artists they follow express political opinions. People want to believe that their favorites hold the same beliefs they do. This is pretty clear in the music industry and has been seen in the wake of Taylor Swift endorsing Harris as well as with Chappell Roan not endorsing anyone. Taylor Swift came out of country music whose fans, we can probably agree, skew more to one end of the the political spectrum than another. Some saw her endorsement as a betrayal and told her to keep her mouth shut. In the case of Chappell Roan the lack of a full-throated endorsement for Harris was also seen as a betrayal, this time by the other side. There’s more nuance and I could dissect what she said. I could point out that it was ultimately political but that would destroy my larger point of saying that sometimes even being apolitical is a political action. I won’t even get started on the people who don’t realize that bands like Rage Against The Machine are political.
The act of creating art is political in and of itself. How was the artist trained? Did they have enough privilege to be able to go to a fancy art school? Did they have to teach everything to themselves? Do they sell their art, thereby participating in capitalism or do they make it and share it for free encouraging a communal experience? Do they have enough economic privilege to afford better tools, instruments, and programs to augment their skill? How much time does a person have to create? Privilege by its very nature is political.
The consumption of art is not apolitical either. Is the work you want to see in a museum that requires admission or is it a mural in an alleyway? Is it located in a place you have to travel a great distance to see? Are you going to get harassed by the law or some guy on the street if you go look at it? Has the work been banned in certain jurisdictions so you have to get creative with its acquisition? Privilege rears its face again and if you haven’t figured it out by now, privilege is political.
Whether the intent of a work is to be political or not is irrelevant. There are always political factors that go into the production of art and more often than not there are political factors that go into the consumption of art. Art by nature is political. Pretentious enough for you?