Socially Engaged Contemporary Art
Week 12
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Nato Thompson wrote this article in 2011 and Socially Engaged art has only gained more traction since then. It's a form of contemporary art that needs a constant critique to maintain it's integrity. Socially Engaged art faces obstacles that studio practices do not, although maintaining a studio practice is no less difficult or conceptually challenging, Socially Engaged art seeks an end goal beyond personal expression or aesthetic critique. Recently Nato wrote about a ethical dilemma of socially engaged art (SEA) in which the attempt to label SEA as only art that moves toward productive work in social justice may limit the art form - especially since Nato is hoping this work begins to function outside the incubator of the art world. That SEA is often assumed as progressive, which may not always be the case, is troublesome once community stakes become part of the equation. The translation that all SEA is good or productive would be to say the same of any other art form - as Nato says "FOR all painting" and no one ever says this, no one likes and supports all painting - exposes the tension of this new art form in relation to art and politics.
Writing like this is important for artists looking to engage in this type of work who may not be engaged in community based work or discussions of working in communities, like this particular class is. Nato's usage of thinking through the art as "tactical" or "strategic" highlights this work as project based, requiring a decent amount of planning and structure to be executed. This work cannot be approached lightly, especially if an artist hopes it to be sustainable. He also highlights how most of this work is created through partnerships with institutions - either academic or museum - which is imposing a new role on such institutions, asking them to engage the cultural capital they have to help artists on the ground.
It concerns me though, especially since this practice has still not completely launched itself outside of the art realm (and I would say, especially projects tied to Creative Time) that like other art forms, they will fall out of style. The danger of the avant garde is it becomes passé, although this might not happen anytime soon, I fear it will and the momentum created in the art community will be swallowed again by auction house capitalism. Not that the art world isn't reigned by the creation of purchasable objects or what sales make the Style section of the NYT thanks to Sotheby's but it is important to keep this dialogue on sustainability alive, so that perhaps systems are put in place and the idea of the teaching artist is transformed and elevated.
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How can we shift from holding work to an aesthetic critique to a political critique? Is there still room for aesthetic in this type of work? How can we press SEA artist's to maintain a goal of sustainability?
