Why Art Matters. NOW!
We’re all in a place we’ve never been before.
Trying to make sense of some god-awful ugly truths.
Struggling to find the right words to articulate unsettled feelings, raw emotions and new revelations. Grappling with stark new realities in the wake of massive social turmoil and global outrage after 8 minutes and 46 seconds of an arrest that went horribly wrong.
To be perfectly clear, what happened to Mr. George Floyd that fateful day in Minneapolis was 1000% wrong in every way. The people responsible for his agonizing death need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and judged accordingly. The same laws designed to protect any of us in any nation that calls itself civilized.
Some of the new answers we’re all searching for will likely arrive in the form of new questions; often asked by courageous artists who stand tall in the middle of history to give us new things to think about. In other words, poets and painters frequently prove to be stronger voices for change than political leaders and activists.
“True artists are the foot soldiers of social revolution.”
In 1937, Nazi bombers rained terror on innocent civilians during the Spanish Civil War and Pablo Picasso responded with ‘Guernica”. Arguably his most famous painting, this cubist mural depicts grotesque human figures and animals, twisted in agony; a provocative way of denouncing Fascist aggression. True to his nature, Picasso refused to have it on display in his native Spain until justice had been restored there. In 1967, when 'Guernica' was displayed at the Museum of Metropolitan Art, artists petitioned for it to be removed as a protest against the Vietnam War.
Fifty years ago, 4 students at Kent State University were killed by National Guardsmen while protesting the Vietnam War. An angry Neil Young of the super group CSNY echoed the public mood of shock and indignation with the lyric “tin soldiers and Nixon coming”. The haunting refrain of “four dead in Ohio” reflects an era when politics literally became a matter of life and death.
New York’s “Guerrilla Girls” started rattling cages in the mid 80’s with "weenie counts" at institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. These now legendary feminist artists (with concealed identities) ridiculed the Met after data showed that women artists had produced less than 5% of the works while 85% of the nudes were female.
Artists are often the first to speak loudly and forcefully on behalf of human rights, letting the political, commercial and social chips fall where they may. When any artist is willing to risk that much, they deserve our respect for attempting to make a contribution to the public discourse without resorting to violence.
Over the past week, we’ve had a front-row seat, watching this unfold in our own family. One click and you will know exactly where new media artist Josh Parlee of Defiant Astronaut Media stands; naming names and sharing their stories.
Art has the power to make us pause, reflect, and hopefully change the world for the better; allowing us to find new truths on our own terms, especially at a time when truth itself is under siege in a global climate of fake news and alternative facts.
And maybe that’s the point.
What if the best forms of art are the best way for you and I to develop our own personal relationship with truth? To serve as a mirror for reality and raise serious questions about what we’re willing to accept. The Irish poet John Keats with his “Ode on a Grecian Urn” in 1819, believed any notion of what is truly beautiful originates from that premise.
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty, – that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
That same year, on August 16, English cavalry charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people, who had gathered at St. Peter's Field in Manchester, demanding parliamentary reform. About 15 people were killed, hundreds injured and Percy Bysshe Shelley picked up his pen and wielded his poetic power to protest what was dubbed the Peterloo Massacre; advocating radical social action and non-violent resistance:
“Shake your chains to earth like dew / Which in sleep had fallen on you- / Ye are many — they are few”.
Can art help us find bitter truth, rediscover what’s beautiful about the human experience and change society in a positive, meaningful way?
I am f**king well betting on it.
“Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth” PABLO PICASSO
p.s... Earlier in the pandemic, the brighter side of Art revealed itself when the mysterious Banksy surprised health care workers in Southampton, England.
And on the front lines of retail America, one 21-year old lyricist, poet and Walmart associate crafted this timely piece that makes us feel a little closer during times of social distancing.
p.p.s ... Raised by her grandmother in rural Arkansas, she became a mother at 16 before blossoming as an artistic tour de force that included seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry and a list of plays, movies and television shows spanning over 50 years. In 1983, Maya Angelou published "Caged Bird" a poem illustrating the opposing experiences between two birds: one living in nature as it pleases, while the other suffers in captivity. Using the extended metaphor of the two birds, Angelou illuminates the contrast between the privilege and entitlement of the un-oppressed and the emotional resilience experienced by those who are suffering. Given recent events, you can judge for yourself whether her work still speaks to the power of the human spirit.
Caged Bird
BY MAYA ANGELOU
A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.
The free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.
The above photo was taken June 7, 2020 in London, Ontario during the peaceful protest held at Victoria Park by the supremely talented photographer Paul Lambert. You can view other stirring samples of his photographic genius by visiting www.paullambert .photography.
p.p.p.s .... In case you were curious, Neil Young's band mate Graham Nash explains another side of the story behind the rage that sparked "Ohio"
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"Everything you can imagine is real" PABLO PICASS