TALKING THROUGH YOUR ARTS – BIENNALE BOYCOTT

TALKING THROUGH YOUR ARTS – BIENNALE BOYCOTT
Image: The offshore detention camps on Manus Island. Photo: Wikimedia

Who controls art? Is it the artist, or the subject, or is it the manufacturer, the publisher, perhaps distributor? Or is it the sponsor, the Board and its director?

In an open letter to the Biennale of Sydney (BOS) Board of Directors, 28 artists have declared their opposition to Government’s mandatory detention practices and Transfield Holdings – the corporate entity that is partner to BOS which has minor shares in Transfield Services. The latter runs offshore immigration detention centres in Nauru and Manus Island. The artists have threatened to withdraw following a call to boycott the festival after the mistreatment of asylum seekers.

Festival Director Juliana Engberg is sympathetic to the issue, however, feels that the pressure to boycott placed on participating artists and BOS is the wrong target. Is it?

Incursions of one cultural world into another have frequently stemmed from concern on the part of those who are better off, for those less well off than them. This kind of concern has produced social reformers and some remarkable campaigning artists who are motivated by the desire to produce social change.

Every day, artists produce countless artworks, most of which will never be seen by a mass audience.  However, those that are seen by a mass audience in newspapers, magazines, television, the web and on high street hoardings all play an important part in our lives. Their messages – both explicit and hidden – help to shape our concepts of what is real and what is normal.

We have seen artists campaigning appeal to the sentiments of self-disgust, shame and anger at the cruelty, brutality and dehumanisation of governments, ours. Art arouses an active anger in the production of support for political intervention.

The motivation behind offering or using the skills of art to bring about social change is very similar to that behind taking literacy to the illiterate.  The conscious-raising value of presenting collective initiatives receives their immediate inspiration from an even more pervasive cultural change, which has come about over the years.  In many parts of the world the rise of the autonomous art libertarian expresses concern for better access to the means of expression in the upsurges of political consciousness. They have included cooperative movements for gay-liberation, racism, equality and human rights.

I suggest that the artist doesn’t stop creating art just because something dreadful is happening.  I think that what these artists are saying is, something dreadful is happening as I create and while art cannot create a moral position, artists can reinforce one and develop one. (AS)

BY ANGELA STRETCH

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