I was just listening to the NYTimes book review podcast extolling the merits of a great modern German artist, how he made us uncomfortable - to examine our society, that is the job of an artist. I guess it is defined so these days. Was Divinci's job to make us uncomfortable? Was van Gogh's job to make us uncomfortable, or Cezanne, or Giotto, or Hokusai? Is that why they are great? It is interesting that art is now defined by the critics as taking over the job of social and moral criticism. Art is supposed to challenge our views and ourselves, make us question.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately as I have an exhibition opening 3/11, the day of the quake and Fukushima disaster that the Japanese government and media and industry has worked so hard to cover up. Still lies, mixed with Japanese children peeing cesium, people being encouraged to live in the contaminated areas, lies about where and what is contaminated, reports that it is all under control when there is no actual way to look at or even monitor what is going inside the run away reactors yet, computer simulations about what the government wants to believe is happening, and forming policy on these simulations.
Plenty of things to be up in arms about.
But then I open my facebook and there is this guy Bill who always has some big print messages about the republicans. And even though I agree with the big print things, it is annoying to have to read them as I scroll down. Didactic and social critique, where do they fit?
I like Ben Shan. And he is having a nice retrospective in Tokyo, probably brought on by his anti-nuke stuff from the 60's.
The gallery directors choose as a invitation card immage a little design I made for an anti-nuke tee shirt, for one of the first no nukes protest last spring. Hard to make it work as a piece of art for me though.
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