Leafing recently through a back issue of Arts & Activities (which bills itself as “the Nation’s Leading Art Education Magazine”), I was struck by yet another instance of the foolish injection of political issues into art education.1 An article entitled “Design Thinkers” featured the following photo:
Jessica Walsh and Timothy Goodman, “Build Kindness not Walls,” New York City, March 15, 2016.
The project shown had been carried out in 2016. But its mention in the March 2018 issue of Arts & Activities was prompted by a glowing account of the 2017 Design Thinkers Conference—at which “perhaps the most entertaining and inspirational talk” was given by Timothy Goodman, one of the project’s two designers.
According to the Arts & Activities contributing editor who penned the account, the project
reflected the design community’s response to the Trump administration’s promise to build a wall on the U.S/Mexican frontier. [This] brilliant creative wall . . . [was] an example of the potential artists have to inform the public and make our leaders at least reconsider their decisions.
What’s wrong with that claim? Never mind that at the time the project was executed there was no “Trump administration”; there was only the Trump presidential campaign. Of more substantive importance for art education, the claim ignores the utterly pedestrian (in more ways than one) quality of the project’s design—which naively promotes a dubious political agenda.
As an example of design, the project’s lineup of volunteers holding nondescript placards spelling out the project’s political message was anything but “brilliant.” Its only claim to distinction lay in the community organization involved in assembling the bearers of the placards. True, it had “earned considerable media attention,” including sympathetic coverage in the New York Times (“A Pitch for Kindness Outside Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan”). Yet that, too, was due not to any brilliance of visual design, but rather to the political message that was conveyed.
Kindness to Whom?
Still worse than the project’s design was the political content of its message—exacerbated by its being alleged to reflect the views of the presumably entire “design community.” To begin with, the implied opposition of “kindness” vs. “walls” is inane. As was the comment of a visual arts student who opined: “History tells us that walls never do any good” (quoted, without comment, by the Times). Tell that to the citizens of Israel, where walls have contributed to a substantial reduction in both terrorist attacks and illegal immigration.
Walls may seem unkind to people trying to cross them illegally, but they can be very kind to the people they protect. As in so much of the immigration debate, however, the “kindness” plea is biased in favor of would-be immigrants. It ignores the needs of legal residents whose lives may be adversely affected by illegal immigrants.Consider the family of Officer Ronil Singh, for example. Would a wall on our southern border not seem an act of kindness to them if it could have kept out the illegal immigrant who so tragically murdered him?
Of even greater concern is a much broader question. Rarely touched on in debates about immigration, it applies to legal as well as illegal immigrants. Are the numbers of new arrivals per year exceeding the rate at which they can be effectively assimilated into American life? I am reminded of this every time I visit a doctor’s office or receive mail from my health insurance indicating assistance available in more than 20 foreign languages.
Moreover, should major businesses and government agencies continue, as a matter of course, to provide Spanish and other language options?2 Or does such a practice impede assimilation? Still worse, the very idea of assimilation—the long-vaunted principle that America is a cultural melting pot—has become anathema among the “politically correct.” Can a viable society be long maintained under such conditions? I doubt it. And if it cannot, are the very qualities that draw immigrants here in danger of erosion?
According to the Center for Immigration Studies,
The data collected by the Center during the past quarter-century has led many of our researchers to conclude that current, high levels of immigration are making it harder to achieve such important national objectives as better public schools, a cleaner environment, homeland security, and a living wage for every native-born and immigrant worker.
Such complexities are of course overlooked in feel-good projects like “Build Kindness not Walls.” All the more reason to steer clear of such projects in art education, where they are unlikely to receive the critical scrutiny they merit, yet add fuel to an ill-informed emotional response to the complex political issues involved.
Notes
- For others I’ve commented on, see “The Political Assault on Art Education,” Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2010; and “If you see something, say something,” For Piero’s Sake, December 7, 2015; also the section entitled “‘Social Justice’ Activism and Art Education” in “Art Education or Miseducation? From Koons to Herring,” Aristos, August 2017. ↩
- Astonishingly, even an agency such as the New York City Board of Elections posts notices in multiple languages!—which means that fluency in English is not required in order to vote. ↩
Michelle, my point is that political/social change is always led by simple slogans, often visually crude and not art. They mask the complicated issues in favor of incitement. What is called political art is almost always one-idea illustration. I suppose the best exception I can think of is J. David’s “Death of Marat” but even that work (first version) is tamed by its exquisite form. I don’t think elementary level art education is suited to political “art” analysis because good art transcends political slogans and partisan propaganda.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
William, once again your defense of the piece ignores the focus of my post: art education. On one thing we can agree, however, “good art transcends political slogans and partisan propaganda.” By the way, David’s brilliant Death of Marat is a good example of politically inspired work I admire as art though I abhor its message of heroically memorializing Marat, who was a member of the murderous Montagnard faction in the French Revolution.
Michelle; When I say good art I refer to content — complex, allusive, paradoxical, etc., and not to form. I explained that earlier. Again, you seem to make form the art. That’s not radical but it is contrary to contemporary art theory. I suppose content in art is always political, or socially engaged somehow, but the better that content, the more conflicted it is. Sometimes we can just forget the word art, and its baggage, and just respond to experience, to affect, in reflective ways, no matter the source. That’s what artists do. They look at what’s not art [to] discover new access to content.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
You are quite right that my view is “contrary to contemporary art theory,” William. Unlike you, I hold that form and content are inseparable in genuine art. What a work should be judged on as art is how effectively the intended content is embodied in the form—not on whether one agrees with the content.
Michelle; Yes, I know this is a complicated topic. Art theory is multi-headed. In looking at pre-modernist art (and including the later Abstract Expressonists at least) I agree that form and content are inseparable, except for the “process” artists today). But generally, after duChamp it gets difficult…as it does before art was “art” (see Hans Belting). The abstract expressionists were probably the last major artists to see form and content as unified. After conceptualism it’s impossible to unify them. I suppose it comes down to interrogating the notion of “embedded” as opposed to “allude to” or “evoke, “or point to”, etc., all terms which recognize that form is one thing and content is another. Sometimes form is better than the content it brings to mind; sometimes not. I can contemplate content I detest, or love content that is merely charming. Art forces us to stand aside, as it were, to recognize and feel what human experience is and can allow. However, I’m probably more toward your view than you expect because I think form must be very provocative to entice my examination/experience with content. At any rate I admire your intellectual elbows and thank you for posting my remarks, rather hurridly composed.
For your possible amusement, I submit a much more imaginative use of aligned placards – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-uvyL-sAHY
Handel’s music is a distinct work of art; but this presentation, a prime example of parody. The irreverent irrelevance is what makes it funny.
Michelle; It’s not insulting to criticize another’s comments, reasoning, or point of view. You will note that my comments are directed to a point of view, yours, but not to you. As I’ve said previously, I think you are a most capable and articulate writer despite my rejection of your art criticism or art philosophy. As for political art I need to say I’m dubious of most of it. It succeeds when it commemorates but usually fails when it seeks to antagonize or proselytize. In such cases it fails its function even though it may succeed in form. My position is that artworks are possibly good in content insofar as that content is complex, or even contradictory, or paradoxical and is revealed and vexed by form. Good political messaging needs to be direct and unfettered by the multi allusive content of art. In other words the better the art the worse it serves as a political symbol or message or call to action. That’s why I suppose any blunt, impulsive and direct message serves better as political “art” (unart) than a carefully made piece of complex art, with its contradicting or multi layered content. So I agree that the “Build Kindness Not Walls” sign is a dumb and shallow artwork it might be an effective political protest simply because it lacks the nuances of serious art and instead offers a weak, one dimensional metaphoric slogan that, like an idiotic ad slogan, is memorable and imperative, a “do this” command. The more art it is the less politically effective it is. Except in commemorative or honorific instances where the tribulations of human complexity are also entwined. Xenophobia, however, never succeeds in art because art recognizes human frailty ( hatred of the other) as something to regret or overcome. I’ll say no more. It’s your blog.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
William, the “Build Kindness Not Walls” sign is not just “dumb and shallow” as an artwork. It’s a dumb and shallow response to a complicated political problem. Do you have a lock on your front door, or do you advertise to neighbors that they’re welcome to enter ad libitum? My guess is that it’s the former, but that you don’t consider yourself a xenophobe.
On another note, I do wish you could manage brevity in your comments. And you haven’t yet justified your claim that “When she favors [a work’s] form she also favors its content, even if that content is deplorable.”
Nothing beats a post by Michelle Kamhi on a record cold day to heat the blood to near boiling point. There can’t be anything more stupid from the Trump crowd than zenophobic blathering favoring a wall along the southern border. Well, maybe the insane denial of the human causes of global warming is more stupid. Even Kamhi knows, of course, that empires have both risen and tumbled under banners of silly slogans, and badly designed flags. When an image or a slogan catches the upsurge of social demands, aesthetic considerations are replaced by symbols of unstoppable urgency, however clumsy. In political art we need to set aside aesthetics, or form, as a measure of political content validity. Aesthetics won’t help or hinder political urgency for change. When Kamhi doesn’t like art content she attacks its form. When she favors its form she also favors its content, even if that content is deplorable.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
William,
I was tempted to delete your post because of its insulting tone and false personal allegations, but decided to leave it up as a classic example of missing my point. The question is, What constitutes political art? (And if it does not qualify as art, what place does it have in art education?)
You are willing to accept anything as art if you approve the message. I am not. By the way, would you care to cite an instance in which I have attacked work I regard as bona fide art because I disliked the message?