Art is not some free floating agent miraculously cut loose from the common life of social and historical realities.
Art is political in that it addresses the broader issues of workable concepts – the foundations upon which politicians build their careers and evolve their rhetoric if not necessarily their policies.
When art is joined to politics of the moment it becomes a fade away affair notable only for its connection to the historical incident that necessitated it.
Li Huayi is a fantastic Chinese painter whose earlier artistic career illustrates something of what I mean by the above statement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHizMRo_T_M
In counterpoint, here is a brilliant painter who worked happily enough in collusion with any regime that happened to be in power…Jacques-Louis David. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJVCtPrJ7NQ
A minor though more pernicious variant of this abuse is evident when a dominant contemporary preoccupation – that is to say, any more or less transient issue with which we distract ourselves, including all preoccupation with celebrity and entertainment – is transformed into a visual conceit; a kind of meager intellectual affectation with a shelf life comparable to the brevity and relevance of the very thing that caused it to come about.
Whereas the former may be categorized as work done under the gun (I’m not talking about speed of production here ladies and gentlemen) the latter is plainly novelty capriciously exploited in the hopes of getting ones hook into the public imagination.
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