Art Against Mental Politics - Art, Protest and Catharsis

Show Notes

Summary

Alex reflects on how, during these turbulent times, art is more important than ever to help us cope, express our views, connect with society, and ultimately help us maintain our mental wellness and that of those around us.

Transcript

I tend to stay away from current affairs on this podcast, well, I have done thus far, not because I don’t pay attention to such things, or because I don’t think it’s relevant to the subject. I think the events in the world around us are deeply relevant to both arts and mental health. With the world and the state that it is at the moment: Two brutal wars and what just happened in good old US of A, I’m recording this the day after the American election that saw Donald Trump win his second term in office, I’d argue that art’s relationship current affairs and politics is increasingly relevant. Not just relevant, but essential and urgent. Which is what I want to talk about in this episode.

The level of ambient anxiety all this global instability causes is not particularly good for my mental health. At times like these I try to screen out the news since it stresses me out, and I have very little control of it. For example, I’m not American and I didn’t get to vote in that election, despite the fact that a Trump victory would, and now will, likely affect the security of my country.

I don’t think I’m alone in wanting to open my phone on a daily basis and scream into it, “give me some good news for God’s sake” although I’m sure Google Assistant would oblige were I to do so, I dread to think what it might dredge up. This instability is affecting the mental health of many people, and this being a podcast aimed at improving mental health, it would seem a little irresponsible to knowingly inflict on my listeners stuff I know is likely to harm their mental health.

But I also can’t ignore it completely, because if art does anything, it holds a mirror up to the world, to society, culture, and reflects what it sees, which is sometimes beautiful and sometimes hideous. So I’m going to talk about a few facets of the arts and their interface with current affairs, society and politics. I’m going to try not get sucked into any specific of what’s going on in the world right now, or soapbox on my political views, but inevitably I’ll have to make reference to real events here and there, and my opinions are likely to leak out, even if only latently. So consider this your content warning. If you really don’t want reminder of the nutso state of the world, then skip this episode, and maybe go listen to my calming tones on one of my other episodes.

I deleted my Twitter account, I guess, maybe a year ago. I think just before it got mutated, hulk-like, into it’s malignant and incessantly angry twin, X, after It was bought by King Goblin, Elon Musk. That turn of events is what finally triggered me to delete my account, but I’d realised long before that I needed to stay off that platform, regardless of what it was called or who owned it, because it’s like crack to my brain. I just get sucked in. The algorithm is designed perfectly to mesmerise my ADHD brain, feeding me dopamine via little packets of rage and outrage. I’ve heard it said that arguments are full of dopamine, and as much as I loathe conflict, my dopamine starved brain will take its fix anywhere it can get it. Twitter/X is just one big argument these days, a stock pot of outrage and bile that’s always teetering on the threshold of boiling over. To varying degrees it was always was. I used to get sucked into obsessively refreshing my feed like chicken pecking at its feed and finding myself constantly tense and angry but still hitting refresh and getting annoyed when the algorithm wasn’t feeding me anything new. There had been times when I’ve entirely deleted the app from my phone and actually put blockers on my home network so I couldn’t access it but still couldn’t be bring myself to actually delete my account because I convinced myself that I needed it, so I could promote my art, for my job, to keep abreast of fast emerging events, FOMO. The creeping, insidious fear that if I did so I would be irreconcilably severed from the rest of the world, to fester in abject solitude. I was like an alcoholic in recovery having a secret stash of vodka in an unmarked bottle at the back of the larder, just in case.

But the Elongated Maskrat’s antics compelled me to finally kick the habit, and I downloaded my history and said goodbye to the trollverse. I haven’t looked back, and despite the fact that mental health remains at best variable, at least I’ve removed one source of anxiety and negative feeling and that’s good. But, here’s the thing, I’m going to get angry anyway. It’s kind of hard to avoid the news, especially at the moment, given everything that’s going on. I avoid the news apps but I then fire up one of my favourite podcasts and here’s an advert for some current affairs show or whatever and there I am dragged right back, kicking and screaming, into that world. I don’t like a lot of what’s going on and I feel somewhat powerless. Not completely powerless, I can choose where I direct my eyeballs, where I spend my money and how I use my vote, although the opportunity to do the latter is probably five years away in the UK. But really, there’s relatively little I can do to affect the macro world situation. But I can talk, I can run this podcast and I can attempt to enrich the lives of people around me to the better and I can make art.

Instead of venting my spleen via one hundred or whatever characters, I could retreat to my studio and spleen vent onto a canvas. It’s an escape route where I can either simply ignore the world and/or channel my reaction into an artwork. I create paintings that are parcels of escapism both for me and hopefully for the viewer.

Some of my works from about five or six years ago around the time of Brexit in the UK were either overtly or covertly political. I would weave in cuttings from newspapers and bits of social media and magazines and stuff and I would have collages with some themed picture over the top taken from a movie or whatever to make some point about the state of things. I was making slightly clumsy but heartfelt comments about the absurdity of the world around me. I incorporated images of political figures who I found repellent. This for me is partly at least an exorcism of demons by depicting and making fun and critiquing these people who I disagree with on almost a molecular level. It takes the place of me ranting and raving and moaning and boring and baiting those around me. It feels like I’m doing something positive or at least doing something. Whether or not these messages will reach anyone or whether or not people understand or interpret these works as I interpret them, and if they could, whether it would at all affect their opinion on any of these matters, I don’t really know. I doubt it. Some of my motivation here is to make a statement so I can say in the medium that I’m comfortable with, “I’m not okay with this”. And to connect with people who are also not okay with this. If I can change someone’s mind on a subject, then great, but I strongly suspect that almost never happens. And it’s pretty well understood in psychology that reasoned persuasion is usually counterproductive in terms of trying to win people over to your argument.

Art is a medium for communication and therefore that’s what I’m doing. And I’d rather show someone something that I made that they can appreciate and enjoy while also containing a message than, you know, getting on a podcast and ranting about the state of the world.

I’m certainly not alone in using my chosen artistic medium to express my dissatisfaction. Picasso, responsible for perhaps the most famous piece of political or protest art before Banksy turned up, The Guernica, stated that ‘Art is a lie that makes us realise truth’, he’s saying that by making fictional things, we highlight real things in the real world. His famous, and giant, painting was a comment on the horrors of the Spanish Civil War which, in his words, “clearly expresses my abhorrence of the military caste which has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death.”

The history of protest art it at best diffuse, but examples of it have been traced back to ancient Egypt. More recent early examples can be found in the likes of Francisco Goya’s series of 82 prints depicted the horrors of the Peninsular War with terrifying, unflinching honesty in the early 19th century. But it was in the 20th century that protest art really became a cultural force. From the anonymous feminist activism of The Guerilla Girls through Keith Haring’s vibrant, playful but deadly serious graffiti, to Pussy Riot’s very public displays of performative, punkish discontent.

About his 1917 work The Funeral, German expressionist George Grosz said “In a strange street by night, a hellish procession of dehumanized figures mills, their faces reflecting alcohol, syphilis, plague … I painted this protest against a humanity that had gone insane.”

Chinese artist in exile, Ai Weiwei dedicates his life and works almost entirely to political protest and makes work across a dizzying array of styles and mediums including sculptural installations, woodworking, video and photography. He stated that “The world is not changing if you don’t shoulder the burden of responsibility.”

Grayson Perry’s illustrated vases and other nicknacks are elaborate narratives packed with wry social observation and political comment. Jenny Saville’s nudes wage war on society’s warped expectations regarding the female form.

Music is a awash with protest. Folk legend Woodie Guthrie’s guitar was adorned with the slogan “this machine kills fascists”. Bob Dylan’s early work, Billy Bragg, Joni Mitchell, Bob Marley, hardcore punk legends Minor Threat’s clean living polemicism, Public Enemy’s intimidating black power hip hop, Queen Bey’s world conquering feminism, Kay Tempest’s poetic bile and beauty, Pink Floyd, Rage Against the Machine, Lamb of God etc. etc.

In movies we have Dr. Strangelove on nuclear war, Dawn of the Dead takes aim at consumerism, Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket on Vietnam more recently Don’t Look Up and Civil War turn their sights to modern day USA.

I don’t even know where to start with literature. Orwell? Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Slaughterhouse 5, Catch 22, Silent Spring, Handmaid’s Tale, American Psycho, 50 Bloody Shades or Grey. Many claim that The Lord of the Rings, despite Tolkien’s protestations to the contrary, is awash with social commentary.

I could go into TV, the stage, performance art, and on and on, but I can’t very well just sit here listing things now can I? Suffice to say that if you were under the delusion that the arts should keep their noses out of society and politics, then I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.

And it’s precisely because some people think such things that the arts are so important to a functional society.

I don’t have to look very far to see evidence of those with power seeking to curtail the ability of the arts to critique them. The UK has seen huge cuts in art funding, especially in schools, over the last decade or two, and even direct attacks on our cultural institutions such as the National Trust, the BBC and Channel 4. Although it is fair to say that our film industry is booming.

We see similar manoeuvres all in patches across the world as wannabe despots spring up all over the place. Those with totalitarian leanings, don’t tend to like being critiqued and most see the arts as their natural enemy, along with protest and free speech. Because if people can hold the mirror up to society, then you’re also holding the mirror up to its leaders. I don’t think anyone, regardless of where they sit on the political spectrum, enjoys being criticized, but people who are truly democrats, as in the small d democrats, understand that, criticism, free press, right to protest, right to criticize the government, are essential for a functional democracy and that the correct course of action when criticised is to either change course, or justify your actions. As much as luxury freedom of expressions is only somewhat afforded to us in the UK, Europe, America, there seems to have been a creeping view from the political extremes that, you know, freedom of the arts and freedom of the press is not optimal for the society that they envision coming about, or in China and Russia’s case, that they wish to maintain.

Artists and creators tend to be quite high on the empathy scale and because of this we recognise and reflect the cultural undercurrents human society. And therefore, not only despots see the arts themselves as a threat, they see the artists as a group of people who are inherently opposed to their ideology.

Despots crave a certain kind of order. One where everything points towards them and their bloated ego. Dissent is a dirty smudge on the clean, orderly world they crave, and therefore must be extinguished. So you lock up your critics and curtail the arts. It’s one of the most important doctrines in the fascist playbook.

A functional society needs to be able to express itself. It wants to be able to express itself, and freely. We might be pack animals, but there are a lot of packs out there and they don’t all want or need the same things. Therefore if you want society to fall neatly in line, you have to use force, which is inevitably the way for tyrants. But it’s a hard regime to maintain, and fraught with pitfalls and most despotisms ultimately fail under the weight of their own psychoses. Art is communication, and the number 1 requirement for a functional despotism is to control communication.

But I don’t think many people would knowingly wish fascism upon themselves. Yes, the Nazis came to power democratically, but I’m not sure the German people really knew what they were getting themselves into. One way or another, Hitler preyed on the desperation created by the reparations to serve his own needs, and created a big, evil mess in the process.

Ultimately, as a sane member of a functional society, you want people to feel free to express themselves, to communicate, because that’s how humanity progresses, that’s how culture evolves. That’s what’s enabled innovation in technology, healthcare and entertainment that has made us safer, longer-lived and with richer, more varied lives. It’s enabled some less healthy stuff too, but that’s for another day.

A functional society needs the arts. It may not be that everyone in society appreciates the arts equally, but you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t watch TV or movies or, YouTube or play games or listen to music. And so, the arts do impact on everyone’s life to one degree or another, even if they don’t think of it that way.

And if you constrain the arts, you constrain what people can do and say, you’re by definition constraining creativity and freedom of expression. And yes, of course, there are certain areas that fundamentally shouldn’t be allowed because of the harm and horror they would inflict on people who can’t otherwise defend themselves, i.e. children. But in terms of just creating art that has a functional, non-destructive role in society, you need creativity.

And people need fresh culture pretty much constantly. That’s why people turn up week after week a day to watch the next episode of their favourite soap, Love Island, or the next Mr. Beast video - because it’s new, fresh. And enabling that needs creativity and freedom to express. And the more you constrain that, the less new things can come about. So yes, of course, you can take the same few chords and create a huge number of different songs with them. But eventually, that’s going to sound stale and boring and monotonous, and people will tune out and/or demand something different and new. You genuinely need innovation, and restricting the arts restricts cultural innovation and eventually people will get twitchy about that.

At it its most benign, the art provide solace and escape from a wearying world for both the creator and the consumer. I know that is the case for me. It’s not soley world affair that erode my mental health, but its a major factor. Being able to channel my fear and frustration into artworks is a vital, cathartic release and shelter from the constant barrage of bad news. For all of us, such a refuge can provide that vital breathing space, to recharge so that we may resume the fight revitalised.

So ultimately, restricting the arts leads to a less healthy society, both physically and psychologically. And if you want your society to be optimally functional, then you need them to be healthy and happy. And therefore, the arts need to be available and unconstrained.

Therefore, far from being apolitical, the arts are integral to societal stability, cohesion and progress. Not to mention the money made for those who create and the richness brought to people’s life because of them. Whether your art is explicitly political, or purely aesthetic, your freedom of expression, to choose what you represent and how, is a reinforcement of liberty and middle finger up to tyrants. To quote German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.”

Next time you find some space in your time for creativity, or when you find yourself experiencing some great art, which is basically constantly, remember this. In itself it is an act of defiance. Defiance of the status quo, and a defiance of all those who seek to perpetuate the status quo for their own, malignant ends. Art is change. Be the change.

OK, OK, I’m climbing down off my soapbox now. I’ll stay off it for a little while not least because I’m apoplectically sick of it all, it’s making me so sad and tired. But I should say that I’m not shy with expressing my political views, nor am I embarrassed buy or ashamed of them, and I doubt it’s hard to either discover or infer my political leanings. But one of my key aims with this podcast, and my artistic endeavours in general, is to bring people together, to help them exchange ideas, communicate empathise. If I use this channel as a platform for broadcasting my political views, all I will do is alienate large swathes of people, and what’s that achieving really? Most of the most pervasive and destructive problems we observe in the world at the moment, which includes epidemic and endemic mental illness, is division. It’s less about left vs right or liberal vs conservative, and more about lack of communication, mutual understanding, empathy, community and shared goals. If you bring people together, they talk. If you guide people to the act of creation, the solace they find in that will help them be more open and empathetic to the world. A few more mentally healthy people in the world can’t be a bad thing right?

Lots of fun stuff coming up in future episodes. Part 3 of the How to be Creative series will be about mastery and lack thereof, and likely a couple more focussing on the role of constraints in creation and one on how ideas come about. I’ve got an episode in the works on the physical aspects of mental illness and how the act of creativity helps. I’m also attempting to line up my first interview episode. Watch this space! Or should I say hear this space?

As ever, please rate and review this podcast and tell at least one of other of your artistically inspired friends or family about it. Support me on Patreon at patreon.com/alexloveless. My artworks can be bought at my website alexloveless.co.uk where you can find lots of other arts based tomfoolery that has exuded from my brain.

Stay safe and I’ll be back soon.