Politics Isn't Art

Jorge Gonzales, artist extraordinaire and artist for the cover of Bachelor Pad Economics is a 23 year old young man who about a year ago was looking for my advice and guidance.  He was a recent graduate from an art school in California, he could not find work, but saw my video series on “Crusaderism” and just about feinted because I had described what he had experienced to a T.

The “High School Vegan Kid,” the political leftist indoctrination of college, worthless professors, and the lies students tell themselves about why their “cause” is more important than they pay (even though they were now $120,000 in debt).  But what I found to be most interesting in our interactions was how, when he was describing various projects and art work he and his fellow peers created, that every piece, every bit of art had to have a “story” behind it.  And not just a story, but a political story.

I found this odd, thinking that “art should just be art, what does politics have to do with it,” but oh how foolish I was.  For, as Jorge explained, you can’t just have a piece of art, you need to have some kind of political motivation behind it, a political story behind it, so you can convey your feelings or explain the plight of some oppressed group or another. 

It didn’t make any sense to me, and matter of fact, I don’t think it made any sense to Jorge, but after sitting down and thinking about it, my brilliant misanthropic and cynical mind came up with the answer like it always does:

These people aren’t artists.  They’re your typical lazy 20 somethings who:

Have no talent
Have no work ethic
Want to avoid rigor and real work at all costs
Still want to become artists anyway

But in imbuing politics with their art they can use it to rationalize in their little minds that they are indeed artists.

Realize the role politics plays in art.  It isn’t to “improve” art.  It isn’t to “enhance” art.  It is 100%, completely for the *COUGH COUGH AHEM AHEM WHEEZE WHEEZE SUPERLARGEAIRQUOTES*

“artist.”

First it masks the fact they aren’t real artists.  You’re looking at a pile of dog shit with a GI Joe figure stuck out of it and the leftist dolt-hack of an artist tells you in made-up esoteric language how it shows in “inner-hatred America has for its tyrannical oppressors that blah bitty blah blah blah.”  But realize what happened there.  In a very subtle and cunning (even unconscious I’d say) stroke, the “artist” redirected the focus from art to a “message.”  You are no longer thinking “wow, this art is shit both metaphorically and really,” but dedicating your frontal lobes to the message.

Second, it feeds the ego of the “artist.”  In having some noble leftist politic message or purpose to his/her art, they think that somehow that compensates for their utter lack of talent.  Could my 3 year old draw that?  Doesn’t matter, it’s “real art” because it portrays the plight of migrant workers who have to learn English to fill out their welfare forms.  Did my dog wipe his ass on the carpet, smearing his feces in a pattern identical to the crap I see up at the Walker Art Center?  Doesn’t matter.  That painting was done to help raise awareness of the discrimination overweight women suffer in today’s beauty-obsessed culture.  In short, substituting a noble cause for a lack of talent helps the talentless artist rationalize wasting $80,000 at art school and 20 years of their life making crappy art.

Third, it serves as a shield.  The most common tactic leftists use is to take a noble or innocent entity or cause and hide behind it as they use it to rationalize the theft of other people’s money.  Teachers do this every day holding the precious children hostage for forever increasing bloated baby sitter salaries and artists do the same thing.

Did you criticize the painting of the black man urinating on the crucifix?
Then you hate blacks!  You’re a racist!

Did you criticize the sculpture of a woman having sex with a donkey?
Then you hate women!  You’re a sexist!

Did you criticize the pile of cat shit smeared on a picture of Ronald Reagan?
Then you hate the poor oppressed child slave laborers of Gabbitygoo, Costa Rica that the feces OBVIOUSLY represent because you lack the vision and interpretation skills to see what this true work of art obviously is!

In other words, having a political message attached to a piece of art allows the artist to deflect any genuine criticism of his ability as an “ism” or “ist."

And finally, money.  Notice how ALL of the art pieces have a leftist connotation?  A leftist political theme? 

What, you thought the government and the NEA would give money to a conservative artist?

Government/public/non-profit money is pretty much what makes the art world go around today.  Not the real art.  Not the stuff being auctioned off at Sotheby’s for $40 million that people willingly buy.  I’m talking the crap we get to see everyday in architecture, community centers, local crap-museums, and academia.  Heck, you can’t even get a building built in St. Paul without a required minimum amount of art from local artists (look it up, not joking).  But understand what is really going on here.  The art community, just like those “evil” bankers, just like those “evil” insurance companies, just like any other lobbyists, forces the innocent population to pay for their shitty and unwanted hobbies.  From $50,000 drinking fountains to lord knows what else is out there, artists are constantly building leftist-theme pieces of art to get more grants, more taxpayer dollars, more of your money so they can play “make believe I’m a talented artist.”  This not only shows you why most public art sucks, but why there is an obvious surplus of talentless artists and why they are all leftist.

There is good news however.  Time.

You see, time is the ultimate judge.  And over time the political cronies that voted to buy some talentless hack’s art will die.  Those talentless hacks will also die.  And when the next generation of hacks and artists come in, they will say,

“Why the fuck do we have a statue of a woman fucking a donkey in Minneapolis’ City Hall?”

And slowly, but surely, all the government-art, and, consequently, all the life works of the talentless leftists artists will be thrown away and end up in a landfill, right where it belongs – with the rest of society’s garbage.

In the meantime people will still insist on seeing the Statue of David, Michelangelo’s paintings, and pay $40 million for a Pablo Picasso.