In Nina Felshin's introduction to her book "But is it Art" she spends a while analyzing what Activist Art actually is. Do you agree or disagree with her definition? What is some type of activist art, that is part of the hybrid culture mentioned, that you have experienced? In her introduction she also mentions different ways that activists try to get their work noticed. What do you think is the most productive way to get activist art to completely fulfill its potential? Towards the end of her introdution she mentions that it is ironic that most of the artist in her book have "ongoing relationships with the art world." How much do you think that this impacts their ability to effectively accomplish their activist goals? One more thought, do you think that it is possible for an activist group to remain strong and effective over a long period of time, perhaps 75 years or more? What would have to happen in the group to make this possible?
In the second reading there are many different arguments about whether there is an Asian American aesthetics. Every writer seems to have a slightly different idea about what eactly aesthetics means. What does it mean to you? How would you define it? In Paul Pfeiffer's essay he claims that the idea of Asian American aesthetics is completely legitimate because no one questions Western aesthetics, which he claims is equally broad. Do you agree with this assessment? Why or why not?
Any questions you don't get a chance to blog about we can always talk about in class so don't feel like you have to get to all of the! See you guys monday :)
I would like to comment on "What do you think is the most productive way to get activist art to completely fulfill its potential?" First, I think activist art is a progressive art form and it is difficult to completely fulfill its potential. However, I believe there are ways to spread its messages. One way is to collaborate with other social groups, as Felshin points out in the reading. Another way is to have a clear mission and identify the group of people the are affected and give them the voice ("Figuring out where the juice is"). For example, people who are concern with animal issues are not going to pay much attention and sustain the impact of their efforts on AIDS-related issues. Thus, the activist-artist ought to identify his/her audience. Third, activist art should stay connected with the art world (which is one of the questions.) Art museums and cultural institutions are repositories of aesthetic treasures and knowledge of the community. Activists should utilize institutions to present activist art as humanism and to educate the public. In the Chatterjee reading, Andrew Pekarik points out "the art system" is a vital place that "recognizes and rejects artists" and "[i]f one wishes to change the existing system one must infiltrate it and become a gatekeeper" (633). I cannot agree more. Artists ought to maintain an "ongoing relationship with the art world" in order to 1) have patronage support and 2) have different avenues to get their message heard.
ReplyDeleteIn the introduction, Felshin mentions that the practices examined in this reading are “all characterized by the innovative use of public space to address issues of sociopolitical and cultural significance, and to encourage community or public participation as a means of effecting social change” (pg 9). Though I am not necessarily confident that this description is exclusive (meaning there are possibly forms of art that do not fit this description that I would consider as activism), I would definitely agree that art forms that do fit this description would be considered as activism. I think the most important part of her explanation of activist art however, is the fact that it is really “process- rather than object- or product- oriented” (pg 10).
ReplyDeleteIn elementary school through middle school, I don’t think I’ve ever really considered the term “activist art”. At the time, I saw “art” as the 29 fourth-grader reproductions of Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” hanging on the classroom wall, and “activism” was the Ralph’s supermarket employees standing outside the store holding up signs. The first time I saw “activist art” was probably in 9th grade. At the time, my mother was a union organizer for a media-based union (newspaper, television, film, radio, etc. employees). She took my sister and I once, to help out a local LA organization that was planning a protest/demonstration, though I can’t exactly remember what it was that they were protesting. We went to a small office building on a tiny street in Los Angeles, which was currently the organization’s “headquarters”. My sister and I ended up helping them paint and trace black letters onto 6 foot long pieces of cloth, and sewing a colorful triangular trim/border around completed signs. At the time, I really wondered why protest signs needed to be decorated in such detail. Now I sort of realize that the process of getting a dozen people together to sew the triangles is a form of activism in itself. I realize that the signs looked so much more professional than magic markers on poster board—those signs made it seem like the people who were protesting really had an issue they wanted to settle, instead of simply walking around and yelling for no reason.
One of the first things that come to mind when I hear “activist art” at the 5Cs however, is the wall at Walker Beach down at Pomona where students paint about current issues going in both at the 5Cs and around the world. A second event that comes to mind is a 5C Asian American sponsor program art project that involved students from all 5Cs painting a giant mural which currently is hung somewhere in Pomona. Then as we talk about around the community, I think of Tuesday Night Café or even Kollaboration as forms of activist art.
I don’t think that there is really a “most productive” method in getting activist art to fulfill its potentials and goals. The main thing is to get people involved in the entire process—creating the design, producing the product, displaying the result, critiquing… There is a purpose to each and every step as Felshin mentions in the beginning, it is the process that is the key.
As for activist art maintaining an "ongoing relationships with the art world", I think that this is necessary, but only under certain conditions. If an activist artist were a painter, or a professional filmmaker, for example, then I fully agree with Felshin’s view that “one foot in the art world” and “the other foot…in the world of political activism” keeps activist art on “solid ground”. This strategy will most certainly continue the phenomenon for years and years, as long as there are people willing to maintain the process. However, if we are talking about more common forms of activist art, such as Walker Beach in Pomona, I think the only thing you really need to maintain this sort of activity to keep going, is involvement/interest from people.
To begin with, I thought that Pfeiffer’s argument was underdeveloped. When he poses the question of “‘How can there be an Asian American aesthetics, when Asia is made up of so many different countries…?’” he doesn’t answer it. When I read that paragraph, I thought it was ridiculous that he attempted to answer it with another situation that could merely be put into that question. Frankly, I think it’s also important to then ask how European aesthetics can exist, for the same reasoning, rather than assuming that there is a European aesthetics, and therefore must be an Asian American aesthetics.
ReplyDeleteAnswering a question with another question? Yeah, that’s not answering the question.
I’m not sure if there’s an Asian American aesthetics, just as I’m not sure that there’s a Black aesthetics, or a White aesthetics. Honestly? You can find similarities in the aesthetic values of any group of people if you look hard enough. Or you can find so many differences that you might wonder how someone could even attempt to group the aesthetic values of different people together.
The other reading confused me a bit. I feel like she mentioned some art, and some activism, but I’m not entirely sure how she would define “activist art.” Can any form of activism be considered art? Because most activism could be considered a type of “performance art.”
Assuming that any type of activism can really be art, then I think the kind of activist art that fully involves the community is the best method for “fulfilling its potential.” Sure, you can paint messages all around a community stating your message or ship around your art (like the AIDS quilt), but I think it’s more effective to engage the “audience.” Make them part of the activism, like the Iraq war veterans did when they held a demonstration of soldiers abusing civilians – by involving actual civilians.
I'll respond to the questions posed for "But is it Art?" The definition I found for activist art was that it is innovative art. Art that is taken out of the conventional context and makes use of public space. It is what we as a class think of as "effective art." Activist art engages the public audience. It is guided by personal expression, but it is not about the individual. It is a collaborative effort between artists and artists, artists and the public's participation - it is a community involvement to raise awareness about a sociopolicial and/or cultural issue. The process of creating activist art is the mobilization on the issues, and the product is what lasts to remind us of the need to push forth and continue to question and to challenge when the groups or organizations dissemble. Murals and Graffiti immediately come to mind when I think of activist art. I also think of people's signs for a protest. It is interesting to think about how modern technology affects the effectiveness of activist art and also how our modern culture makes a commodity out of or codifies art and thus takes the effectiveness or message out (?) Does activist art have to be louder than mainstream (soul deadening) propaganda and art? Or does it create too much stimulus so the message is drowned?
ReplyDeleteI think the "Asian American Aesthetics" adds to our discussion that we started in class and will generate more great discussion. We talked about and raised a lot of the same questions that are asked in this reading. First, its hard to come to any conclusion because it is very difficult to define Asian American. And then there is the thought that if we define we may loose something it could be. Is defining Asian American uniting of dividing? The multiplicity of Asian American culture has much strength, it can divide and splinter to change and evolve, but how much can the culture fracture before, like a body, it rejects or stops expanding? And does a subculture loose its effectiveness if it becomes singular or stops expanding?
I agree ith Nine Felshin that activist art is more about the process than the object produced. The process is what raises awareness, sense of responsibility, and community ties.
ReplyDeleteI think that the most productive way for activists to get their work noticed is to utilize multiple modes of communication: visual media (television, posters), literature, debates/ speeches, etc. Networking with people involved in communities outside of the activist’s on also helps to spread the message from those who may already know.
I didn’t think of it as ironic that the artists are in touch with the “art world”, as art is their chosen medium of expression. I think that “art” is not innately tame or surreal; that is, there is no rule saying that art must not be political or involved with the “real world”, and so I did not understand the irony.
I believe that activist groups can continue being effective as long as there are issues in their community of choice. The key is to continue shifting from one issue to the next rather than diminishing once the initial issue is resolved (or addressed). The image, goals, and methods of the group would have to change over time, and generational gaps would have to be crossed but I believe that it is possible.
About the "Asian aesthetic", I agree with the Pekarik (p. 632) that if an aesthetic is (as defined by the Mirriam-Webster dictionary) "a particular theory or conception of beauty or art" then it cannot be applied to any group, including Asian Americans. Groups are not monolithic; people will have different opinions and experiences which shape their perceptions of art. However, if Asian American aesthetics refers to establishing a discussion about the community, then I think that there definitely is an Asian American aesthetic.
Felshin says that what is typical in activist art is:
ReplyDelete+collaboration among artists
+public participation
+media
Also, as many have mentioned, process over product. How the art is constructed and the issues surrounding it are as important than the visual and physical art.
Felshin deemphasizes the individual and puts emphasis on the group (the artist group or the social/cultural group that is trying to make social change). Is this always true? Do activist artists always collaborate/work with other people? Do they need to in order to be the most effective art? In other words, I think it is possible for an an artist, as an individual and as an activist, to create art without Felshin's criteria of collaboration/public participation/media.
Pekarik (in Chatterjee's article) said that there is no American aesthetic, no Japanese aesthetic. He would also probably say that there is no activist aesthetic, "the artist creates the aesthetics, and each one is creating an aesthetics of his/her own" (632). In other words, Pekarik puts much emphasis on the individual artist. He/she creates his/her own world or category of art. He would probably say that artists can very much be uninvolved with the factors discussed by Felshin (collaborations, public participation, media).
I found Pekarik to be heading down a very problematic direction. While it is important to recognize the individual artist, he falls into the trap that Meena Alexander describes. You can't be "just poet" (p. 628), or just an artist. Every thing that you create is shaped by your individual experience, and that includes your gender, your ethnicity, your community, etc. Pekarik tries to break away from this by tritely stating that "every artist is dislocated" (p. 632), but this doesn't ring true to me. While it is true that every artist creates her own aesthetic, that aesthetic is informed and created by her community.
ReplyDeleteI think that Alexander's framework for looking at Asian American aesthetics is an extremely useful one. The dominant group in society sets the established framework through which the society engages with art and ethnicity. This is what Alexander describes as "the Eurocentric point of view that has been imposed upon us who have been defined as "the other." (627). So the dominant framework constructs an image of the other, in this case, the "Asian American" or the "Asian American community." All art created by the otherized group, then, is in some way a reaction to or an engagement with this construction. If this is an Asian American aesthetic, then as Pfeiffer argues, it can encompass every kind of diversity and cultural interactions within (and outside) the otherized community. This aesthetic "serves as a direct assault on the one-dimensional and caricaturized terms in which the United States is accustomed to thinking of Asian and Asian American culture." (p. 631).
So to summarize, the Asian American Aesthetic is a broadly defined engagement with the concept of Asian American as defined by the dominant Euro-centric ideology.