If you are an art collector, then art does not really have any meaning for you, and the only purpose of art for you would be to earn profits.

However, for the rest of us, which includes the artist, the curator and the viewer, art can have very different meanings and a very different purpose.

I am a humanist in my values, so I tend to fall for Van Gogh’s quote; “ Art is to console those, who are broken by life,” and here in this blog I will discuss my view of looking at art.

This is a series, with multiple episodes (blogs). In this Episode, I will introduce you to a very popular work of art, my take on it, what does it mean, what is its purpose, and how does it help make the World, a better place to live in.

( Link to Previous episodes, is provided at the end of this blog)

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Q. A brief history of the “Politics of Art” from a different perspective …

Patterns on the walls in a cave, as we all know, are first recorded form of expression by our ancestors. As society evolved, especially in the post agricultural revolution era, a class differentiation within the society evolved, simultaneously.

As has been mentioned by Karl Marx in the very first chapter of — The Communist Manifesto, this differentiation caused by a class divide has turned out to be the most deep-seeded differentiation in the human society, more deep-seeded than that of race, colour, nationality, caste and even gender.

And as class differentiation evolved, so did a differentiation in the various forms of art based of class. For a major part of history, most of the art that we see is bourgeoise art. It is art for, by and of the elite.

Most of the classical and renaissance art is either portraits of the rich and powerful, or visual representations of stories from religious texts. While these religious texts and the philosophy behind them might have an importance of their own, they do not, by any means, speak about the day-to-day concerns and issues faced by the commoners in any society!!!

This has always been a problem with art since ages, and unsurprisingly it carried on the same way with contemporary art. With the exception of a few artists like the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, the British artist Banksy, the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, the Frenchman JR, and the American artist Shepard Fairey, it is difficult to think of big names that stand on the intersection contemporary art and left leaning politics!

Even the most radically creative contemporary artists seem to be disinterested, in many cases, rather deliberately so from controversial political issues! It is difficult therefore to think of an artist equivalent of Galileo, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, George Orwell, Richard Dawkins, Naomi Klein, Arundhati Roy or Noam Chomsky. All of these people have been men of words who stood up against evils of ruthless capitalism and religious dogma.

Somehow, leftist intellectual expression has been more or less been restricted to words, rather than visual imagery. There have been of course, political cartoonists, who have found a regular place besides the op-eds, and then there have been much despised and illegal street artists. However, if you walk in to any museum of modern art in any part of the world, you are most likely NOT to find any significant work which expresses a strong dissent against authoritarian states, or shameless capitalism, or the hypocrisy of traditional religion, or the issue of refugees, or on climate change!

One of the reasons for this is that art like anything else is a profession, and the artist does have to make a living out of it. And while many of the artists might not necessarily be creatives with a dark soul, or thick-heads with a good hand, they might feel the pressures of expediency, and quite understandably so.

If you have been hand-in-glovewith the agents of capitalism in the society, if you yourself have been a beneficiary of ruthless capitalism, then it would be quite difficult you to an artist equivalent of a Noam Chomsky or Arundhati Roy!

If your own carbon footprint is quite high, then you can hardly be a convincing art-activist for the climate change crisis and be an artist equivalent of Greta Thunberg or Naomi Klein!

If you yourself can’t have a meal without a plate full of meat, then you can hardly one to promote veganism or even vegetarianism through art, and be an artist equivalent of a Yuval Harari or a George Monbiot!

If you yourself still believe literally in all the stories written in the ancient religious texts as facts rather than philosophical poetic metaphors, then you can hardly be an artist equivalent of a Richard Dawkins!

Another, problem with contemporary art, if that most of it is not self-explanatory. When people look at a renaissance artwork which is a pictorial representation of a story from the Bible, then they do not need much explanation. Hence no one would have many queries about Michelangelo's — Creation of Adam. Similarly when an artist is commissioned to paint the portrait of some rich and famous person, then there isn’t much context required. No one has any questions about the meaning and purpose of Da Vinci’s — MonaLisa.

However, if you place a rocket-launcher in MonaLisa’s hands, and just disappear after stencil painting it on one of the walls in Soho, or stick a yellow smiley face on her and disappear, as in the Louvre, then people wouldn't know what exactly your point is! In that the writers win. They can explain through words what they mean. Noam Chomsky explains through words what his ideology is, and why he believes in what he believes in.

The funniest bit, is that most of the politically hard-core left leaning intellectuals too are oblivious to contemporary leftist art. Most of them would happily prefer The National Gallery to the TATE Modern!!! and Leonardo to Banksy (if they know about him at all!!!)

Unfortunately, the cliché — a picture is worth a thousand words, does not apply to most of modern art. Left leaning or Right leaning or Meaningless Kitsch, the onus lies on the artist to explain what their idea is. People might have their own interpretations, but it is absolutely essential to know the thought process of the artist first.