What is art today?

What is art today? Recently I attended a lecture on this question. The speaker said that the art of our time is important in addressing social problems. For example, good art addresses the rights of discriminated minorities, the weak, and victims of war.

Art can certainly illuminate different dimensions on some political and social issues. Literature, historiography, and journalism are insufficient to reveal the hidden aspects of reality.

Historical examples

"Death of Marat," the legendary painting by the French artist Jacques-Louis David, is a precursor of the political work of art. It depicts the assassination of the revolutionary leader Jean-Paul Marat (1743–1793). He is stabbed to death in his bathtub by the young Charlotte Corday.

J. L. David took a poignant political moment from the turbulent period of the French Revolution and transformed it into a powerful work of painting. He brushed the painful end of his dead friend with photographic simplicity. The artist altered a political event into a work of art and a symbol of propaganda as the engraving version of the work resonated with the public.

Pablo Picasso's remarkable «Guernica» is another historical example. The Spanish painter depicted the horrors of the Spanish Civil War and the bombing of the city of Guernica with the figures of a bull and a horse. The composition remains to this day a timeless anti-war anthem to humanity.

Boring Art

But is it enough for an artist to choose a strong political or social theme to create a timeless or significant work of art?

Apparently not. Aside from the propagandistic, militant art with a political message that has flourished in all eras under totalitarian regimes, we have seen an abundance of meaningless political artwork in recent times.

The flexibility established in conceptual art has led many artists to produce "political" works as simply as they eat or sleep. It is possible to write the phrases "Stop the War," "Freedom," "Equality," or "Capitalism is Bad" in a slippery script on a canvas and claim to be a political artist. "Political art" rivals Facebook's status in terms of intelligence.

The Pioneers

When Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968), the legendary Dadaist, presented in 1917 his famous "Fountain" artwork, a porcelain urine signed, "R. Mutt," no one was able to imagine what his gesture might follow.

It's no surprise that practically all modern art institutions throughout the world include artworks based on a clever commercial trick or a nasty joke that boggles the mind.

The quality (still exists this term in artistic creation) of art over time is not limited to discovery or cleverness in the current sense. Art is often important because it succeeds in revealing unseen and diverse aspects of complex reality that traditional media and practices cannot reveal.

A piece of art designed to be consumed as a verbal or visual trick may be amusing, however it is not, in my opinion, a work of art.

The gesture by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan shown at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019 is a recent example. He stuck a genuine banana to the wall with grey tape, titled the piece "Comedian," and won both artistically and monetarily.

When media inquired about the aesthetic value (the artwork's monetary worth reached 150,000 euros), the artist's gallery representative, Emmanuel Perrotin, triumphantly replied:

“Every aspect of the work was carefully considered, from the shape of the fruit, to the angle its been affixed with duct tape to the wall, to its placement in the booth—front and centre, on a large wall that could have easily fit a much larger painting—he said as we read in the prestigious magazine Artnet. Ok!

Another artist may tape a banknote to the wall with the words "Capitalism is Evil" written below it. How much would this extremely political work sell for in capitalist money? This is a rhetorical question that may be answered in a variety of ways...

While 21st-century art has no limitations on the tools it uses, there are certain limits. They are intellectual inertia, laziness, and deception.

A friendly piece of advice to artists: if you want to make political or radical art, try a little harder, read a little more, and put aside the ambition to make political art to be taken seriously. Because in the end, you're just confirming that you lack talent and seriousness.