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Sometimes I hear people decry "keep politics out of art!" and I have to scoff because it shows how little they think. Art has been used as a political tool since ancient Egypt at least, if not longer. Art has been a political tool for almost as long as civilization has existed.
The thing is, we have the luxury of looking into the past with rose-tinted glasses. We can look at a realism painting, or an impressionism painting, or the Pieta, and appreciate them for their aesthetic value, and walk away thinking only of their aesthetic value. We don't see them for what they are: images with deeply political intentions.
Art has always been a tool of the wealthy meant to spread THEIR messages and flaunt THEIR wealth. This is another reason why I scoff when people say some shit like "I hate modern art! It's just a banana on the wall selling for $5 million dollars!" because.... art has always gone for absurdly high prices, art has always been done by groups of people (most painters and sculptors had teams to help them work), and art has ALWAYS been an investment. The only difference is that a lot art being made today isn't as universally aesthetically enjoyable or impressive. This goes to show you how much weight people put behind aesthetics. People will love something that's aesthetically beautiful, but passionately hate something "ugly"- even if they mean the same thing. Beauty carries power. And beauty is subjective. Always remember this. Anyway, why is a picture costing $5 million okay if it's beautiful, but not okay if it's ugly? Why should anyone have this much disposable income? I hate the art market as much as the next person, and this is why I'm passionate about performance, happenings, conceptual art, and similar works. They maintain the spirit of art without being as easily monetized. They can not be so easily be bought-and-sold. I'm also passionate about small-scale alternative arts through zines and street art, for example. But typically when people condemn the costs of "modern" art, their problem lies in the content of the art, not with the market. They'll proclaim "modern art / contemporary art isn't REALLY art." this is code for "I only think art made before 1850 in Western Europe or the Classical era and Renaissance, or maybe in the USA, is real art, and maybe some realism and impressionism." So if they believe the concept of the market is okay, just not the actual art that's selling, they'll tell you that the reason why the art being sold is so bad is because of societal degeneration. Make no mistake, this is Nazi rhetoric right here. I'm not going to go down the entire rabbit hole, but there is a very real "art is so bad today because of societal degeneration" to "now I'm a Neo-nazi" pipeline. Google "degenerate art."
And this isn't to say that everyone who doesn't like contemporary / modern art is a nazi. Sometimes people just don't like things. A lot of newer art requires context to understand, this often does a disservice to your average viewer- so it's fair that a lot of people don't like it upon first glance.
I could go on with this... but I won't. The point is: The personal IS political, almost all art is political- whether it tries to be or not.
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Gabriel Lee
I can see why you’d think that insulting certain art forms and concepts can lead into nazism, but isn’t it just human nature to be drawn to imagery more compelling? like classical art, where strokes are miniature and detailed rather than your example of the banana being taped to the wall. I don’t think the issue is people disliking modern art which ends up leading them into nazism, it’s that the nazi party had unfortunately shared shallow opinions like other surface level viewers who judge from what image is most compelling to them. not one after the other, it was shared. with the nazis looking solely on what looks to be best as presentation rather than art itself like anybody else who isn’t the deepest art enthusiast around. Sorry if my reply is scrambled.
It's not that having the opinion that modern art is bad leads to being a Nazi, it's that having opinions that modern art is bad BECAUSE society is degenerating leads to being a Nazi. It's the underlying belief systems at play here. Nazis didn't hate modern art just because it looked bad, they hated it because it presented and represented progressive ideas that they thought were degenerate. The key here is about the underlying belief about why something is bad, and how that belief interacts with the world. Unfortunately a lot of people who talk about modern and contemporary art are unwittingly using Nazi taking points
by dreamspider; ; Report
Thank you for replying though. You do bring up an interesting point about human nature. I hope my reply elaborates more on what I mean
by dreamspider; ; Report