Art-Civic engagement and Social Justice
I met Carlos Montes some years ago after I first moved to Lima, Peru. I met him at a artists collective where I was renting studio space, and he was working on a collaborative project with some other artists at the studio. We had a short conversation that led to other meetings, visiting exhibits together and a now ongoing friendship, of mutual respect and admiration for each others work and abilities. I have talked with Carlos on numerous occasions about the place of the artist in contemporary society, and we have ruminated over and discussed at length the social aspect of his work.
Is it possible to foster civic engagement in social justice and related issues through arts and culture? Carlos Montes raises many questions with his works of sculpture, and brings awareness to issues many of us prefer to avoid. It is much easier to look the other way, or take a cynical, or even apathetic view of the world, and the injustices we see about us. By bringing awareness of social justice issues to their audiences can artists influence, or maybe even bring about change? When did this notion that art could be used as a tool of propaganda to bring about change begin?
I think that examples of the use of art as subterfuge is ancient as the use of art for propaganda but the real change began with The Enlightenment in the early 1700's. Then as now the ruling classes maintained power and derived much of their power from the disparity between classes of people. This hierarchical nature of society is as old as civilization, and I can not think of any example of people living together that is not so arranged. With The Enlightenment came scientific discoveries as well, which cemented concepts that were contrary to the Church/State paradigm into minds of progressive thinkers. These free thinkers gathered in Coffee shops of all places, as many artists and free thinking people do to this day and there they discussed their revolutionary concepts! One being the separation of church and state, and a politic that was born of the people and not by divine right. By the first quarter of the 18century the French Salons had shifted from subjects of mythology, and religion, or grand paintings of monarchs to a varied subject matter that continued to erode the authoritarian paradigm of the old regime. This was the beginning of modern art and it was the first spark of free thought in the visual arts. A knowledge of art history is paramount to a true understanding of human history. I strongly advocate an study of art history as a means to understand society and human history. I will be publishing a new article on The Importance of being Ernest About Art next month!
Carlos Montes's work, “Chained Dogs” depicts to half starved dogs standing on two separated old wooden crates, but chained neck to neck and unable to get away from each other. The two dogs are vicious and their stress and rage is visceral! Carlos explains that they are representational of people, who are caught in circumstances of poverty and living with a sense powerlessness to effect change, but proximity dictates that they must fight each other eternally to survive. They can not see beyond their own circumstances and all their energy is directed at protecting themselves and their small lot in life. They do not see that they are enslaved by a system that mocks them. This system makes pretenses at helping them, and rectifying the problems, but in actuality the systems own survival is dependent on maintaining this status quo. The pretense of assistance is only a compress covering the wounds of the symptoms and does nothing to relieve the pain of the condition or address the true cause. It is like a coat of white paint over rotten wood.
Henry David Thoreau an American Philosopher of the day said, “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” This is the case with art that is meant to change society. It must be presented to the masses, in various forms, over and over, until the dim lights that make up their conscientiousness are focused. The refracted light of their thought must be focused to a point through a lens of clarity and a fire of change instilled in the newly awakened populous.
By the time of Thoreau much had changed in the world. Kings had been beheaded and aristocracies of the old regimes banished to the shadows. The French painter Gustave Corbet who lived contemporaneously with Thoreau would also make changes in the world of art that would irrevocably lead to the modern art movement and today's state of contemporary art. He as well as made social justice statements via his art about the human condition. Prior to Corbet there were formulas that had to be adhered to for the presentation of art at the salons. Corbet was one of the first artists to break with tradition. In the second half of the 19th century, academic tradition required that large paintings should only have historic, biblical, mythological or allegorical subjects. Courbet ignored this convention by painting a familiar domestic world of impoverished peasants toiling to survive on two vast canvases. This was a format for the grandiose images of classical heroes and contemporary monarchs. He considered that contemporary history, even if it was that of ordinary people was important to be witnessed , and merited these large formats. Some of Courbet's revolutionary works were greeted with total incomprehension and caused outrage. This was the case in 1849 with The Stone Breakers (later destroyed), then with Burial at Ornans, at the Salon of 1850-1851.
Montes's sculptue, “The Piggy Bank” was inspired by those trinkets that banks here in Lima, Peru offer youth who are opting into their corrupt system. The piece is far from the delicate pretty little pink banks offered to new customers the corporations want to indoctrinate into their perverse system with an offering of kitsch. It is a ugly, hungry fat pig, who obviously does not hide it's greed of want. The banking systems of the world have become the new aristocrats and the new kings and power brokers! The World bank often forces poorer countries to accepts it help only to create a vicious circle of repayments that can not be met and then to demand strict trade rules that benefit their shareholders. They do this as they rape these countries of their wealth and line their own pockets with dirty money. They have passed their own laws that precede all international and state laws to protect themselves from prosecution for their illegal actions. National, state and private banks follow the trend and do much the same to individuals of our society. The next time a banker tells you, “let me help”. You best take a look at the painting in his closet, because it is going to be marred with ugly!
The path that Corbet walked was picked up by those who followed and they all expressed their debts to him, including Cézanne who took up Courbet's technique of painting with a palette knife, as well as his dark colours and layers of thick paint. James McNeil Whistler, of “Whistlers Mother” fame was a student of Corbet and he would produce what I consider the worlds first abstract painting, “Nocturne in Black.” The history of this painting alone could take a book, and the outrage that resulted from it changed the art world for ever! As one thing leads to another, so it is in these small stages that the art of the world has evolved and these forerunners have shone light on the thought processes of their societies having caused the masses to reassess themselves,instigating change that opened the doors for those who followed. This takes me back to my original questions. Can art change the world? Obviously yes it can, but it does not happen from any one work of art, but from the repetitive process of bringing awareness to the masses. As Thoreau said, “To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
Sadly, like those anthropomorphic chickens portrayed in the sculpture of Carlos Montes, most of us are caged hens, who eat and sleep like the Plato's people chained in a cave. We either chose not to acknowledge the evils about us, or we are so apathetic that we do nothing, not even vote. We continue our dreary existences, eating sleeping and shitting and ultimately dying without leaving our cages. We are fattened by the system and we work and lay our eggs to help the rich get richer.