Listen to Zena tell us about how she brought the two together. © DB-ADAGP Paris). His performance is represented in three black-and-white photos: the artist holds the 2,000-year-old-ceremonial vase, it is caught in mid-air, it shatters on the floor. Annie Godfrey Larmon takes a look. Often, so-called ‘political art’ simply aestheticises protest or resistance. We might trace this to the 1863 Salon des Refusés, when Courbet, Édouard Manet, James McNeill Whistler and others rejected from the Paris Salon displayed their work, under the auspices of Emperor Napoleon III, in another venue at the Palace of Industry. Schlingensief and Abu Hamdan alike disrupted a status quo to force a change. Both origin stories factor into the word’s current use – these are strategies for obstructing systems of power, whether they are economic flows, political events or military operations. Here we discuss his work for the Congress Centre, the role of the artist in society and how art can be a catalyst for change in today’s fast-moving world. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. Posted by Beth Harris, Director of Digital Learning, Education As Director of Digital Learning, I might just have the best job in the world. In 1981 Ivan Kafka covered a street in Prague with 1,000 upright wooden sticks – the only way people could get to work was by trampling them (Credit: Ivan Kafka/Artlist.cz), Of course, sabotage is mischievous. Art has the power to elicit compassion and generosity. He was arrested for this action and had to leave Switzerland. In 1974, German artist Gustav Metzger attacked the commodification of art through such artworks as The Years Without Art – 1977-1980, which called for a three-year hiatus on all art production, discourse, and sales, though his recruitment process was ill-fated. When local residents opened their doors to leave for work in the morning, they were faced with the decision to trample the work – then an illegal act of free expression – or to preserve it and fail to appear for their jobs. This year, the New Museum in New York opened its fourth Triennial, titled Songs for Sabotage, with works by 30-odd artists and collectives from 19 countries that the show’s curators claim set out to “reveal the built systems that construct our reality, images, and truths” with a “call for action, an active engagement, and an interference in political and social structures.” But rather than the documentary images, organisational meetings, and workshops one might expect from such a promise, the show was heavy with paintings and sculptures. INC. is a non for profit organization that aims to use the power of art, culture and education to bring social awareness and social change around the world and in specific communities. Artist Parker Bright protested Dana Schutz’s stylised take on US lynching victim Emmett Till by obstructing view of it (Credit: Twitter/User does not wish to be identified). This brings up a problem that often arises in conversations about art: how can it participate in networks of power that its content willfully rejects? In a 1968 performance, Argentine artist Graciela Carnevale gathered participants in a glass-fronted gallery in Rosario, Argentina before leaving and locking the door behind her. But this all plays out only on the level of representation: no political or social system is impeded. Art is everywhere and i have seen it change things or people. Art is involved in affecting the essential self-sense. After all, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto from the comfort of La Maison du Cygne, a gilded restaurant in Brussels. JR: Can Art Change the World? Can Art Change the World? Détails. "Artists can communicate in … Is she an artist or is she an activist? Five years later, the US artist Lynda Benglis responded to misogyny in the art world by paying $3,000 (£2,118) for an ad in Artforum, in which the artist promoted her upcoming exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York by posing naked with a large latex dildo. Today he is a world-renowned muralist and the artist chosen to present his large-scale artwork at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2019 in Davos. is published by Phaidon, price £39.95 . Most of all, be the change that you want to see in the world. Attempts to fuse art and life full stop have historically been panned by critics – as when the 1993 Whitney Biennial included plumber George Holliday’s home video of Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King, or when curator Artur Żmijewski invited Occupy Wall Street protesters simply to take over an entire floor of the Seventh Berlin Biennale in 2012. Art does not show people what to do, yet engaging with a good work of art can connect you to your senses, body, and mind. Strategies of withdrawal and refusal have likewise been a mode of art world sabotage. Glenn Lowry, Director of MoMA and CNN Style's latest guest editor, on contemporary art, the refugee crisis and why 2016 may be a decisive year for all of us. That said, my favourite act of artistic sabotage was perpetrated in 1981, in the quiet of the night, by Czech artist Ivan Kafka. Sabotage is breaking things so that something else, something different, can happen. The impact that art has on Take today as an example. Many movements in art history have tried to change society in one way or another: Dada artists advocated for silliness and nonsensical behaviour in daily life as the only response to the horrors of the First World War. By smashing the urn, Weiwei ruins the monetary value of the ancient object, but also its cultural value. Their actions were in dialogue with other artist-led organisations at the time, such as Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation, directed by Faith Ringgold, and the Ad Hoc Women Artists group, led by Lippard, whose protests resulted in the inclusion of black women artists in the following Whitney Biennial. Here are ten paintings that had a huge impact. One person who serves as a model here was not an artist but understood how to use a new art form. Can obstruction, or outright destruction, be as powerful as the act of creation? Art Can Change the World is a project that aims at giving underprivileged children the power of using self expression through art to make a difference in their lives and the world around them. Efforts of art world sabotage are often directed, instead, at the institutions that support art, reflecting artists’ frustrations with issues of visibility and accessibility. A song, film or novel can rouse emotions in those who encounter it, inspiring them to rally for change. Her action challenged the very efficacy of art to affect reality. Daniel Buren covered Bern in posters when he was not invited to an exhibition (Credit: Photos-souvenirs: Daniel Buren, March 1969, Bern. Making the world a more positive place is not as difficult as you might think, as time It can … Hard-pressed, I can think of only a handful that supersede the fraught dynamics of art, life, and power to intervene in systems while maintaining rigor in form or concept – works of art that actually do have purpose and effect on the real world. In 1969, the Art Workers Coalition formed, with such artists as Lucy Lippard and Carl Andre at the helm, organising anti-war protests and urging major institutions to close in opposition to the Vietnam War. By contrast, in 1995, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei did indeed make an artwork, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, by destroying another artwork. JR is an internationally acclaimed artist, whose large-scale, black-and-white photographs are exhibited freely in the streets of the world. CAN ART CHANGE THE WORLD ? published by Phaidon. But to return to the opening question: what artworks actually do serve to interfere with political and social structures? INC. is a non for profit organization that aims to use the power of art, culture and education to bring social awareness and social change around the world and in specific communities. As a Social Justice major concentrating on the use of art for social change, one of the most important questions that goes through my head daily is, “Can art really change … Of course, sabotage isn’t simply about breaking things. Gustav Metzger created his Auto-Destructive Art by spraying hydrochloric acid on sheets of nylon then standing by as they dissolved over 20 minutes (Credit: Getty Images). In 1997, the German artist Christoph Schlingensief pulled off one such work when he organised Tötet Helmut Kohl! These projects sabotage the very concept of what an artwork can and should be. This relationship to duration and authorlessness alone makes true sabotage an irksome task for artists. The proposals to topple the column and ruin the painting are not artworks in themselves. It's hard to say what it Here are ten paintings that had a huge impact. This is where art can make a difference. Art can change the by persuading people to do better things or how things people do affect the world which might make a lot of people change their mind or their actions. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. Read about our approach to external linking. Shepard Fairey is one of the most influential contemporary artists in the western world. (Kill Helmut Kohl! Francesca Mencattelli discusses the capacity of crisis to not only render culture more accessible but … Overnight, in the cobblestones of Jansky Street in Prague's Neruda district, just below the castle that serves as the historical and symbolic head of the Czech government, Kafka arranged 1,000 wooden sticks that stood upright. But what the arts can do is remind us that it's possible to save the world. He claimed that all of Germany’s unemployed would together displace the lake’s water. Art can shock us – spur us – into action. She hoped to incite “exemplary violence” in the viewers, who were eventually freed by a passerby who shattered the gallery door. Annie Godfrey Larmon takes a look. ), for which he gathered as many unemployed people as possible to swim in then-German chancellor Helmut Kohl’s favourite holiday destination, the Austrian Wolfgangsee, while the politician was on holiday. The organization was created by the French artist JR to bring continuity to his art projects. They used art as a powerful tool to express themselves and in turn change the world for the good. All images above are taken from the book and are copyright JR, courtesy of Phaidon. Little Sun , a solar-energy project and social business that I set up in 2012 with engineer Frederik Ottesen, is another example of what I believe art can do. Kafka’s installation brings to mind a line from scholars Fabio Rambelli and Eric Reinders: “Destruction is not the end of culture but one of the conditions of its possibility.”. In terms of destroying art itself, one might think of Gustave Courbet’s successful proposal, in 1871, to topple and disassemble the Vendôme column during the events of the Paris Commune, a monument he claimed was “devoid of all artistic value, tending to perpetuate by its expression the ideas of war and conquest of the past imperial dynasty.” Or more recently, of British artist Hannah Black’s conversation-fueling but unsuccessful 2017 open letter requesting that Dana Schutz’s painting Open Casket, which reproduced the famous image of Emmett Till at his funeral, be removed from the Whitney Biennial and destroyed. The University of Colorado Art Museum, using resources at its doorsteps, is showing “Documenting Change: Our Climate (Past, Present and Future), until July 20. And this felt feeling may spur thinking, engagement, and even action. Like I said in the beginning of this post, I want all of us to change the world. Their testimony is living proof of what art can do, even in the direst circumstances. Both of these cases, however, are gestures of framing. Tania Bruguera, in 2009, performed Self-Sabotage at Paris’s Jeu de Paume: between readings of her reflections on political art, she took a revolver with a single bullet in its drum, pointed it at her temple, and hazarded the results of Russian roulette. This page was created to promote serious Art and Artists from all over. Ai Weiwei dropped a 2,000-year-old Han dynasty vase for a photograph in 1995 – and he has painted others, arguably an act of vandalism (Credit: Ai Weiwei). Popular history has it that the word sabotage, from the French sabot, or wooden shoe, was first used in the early 20th Century to describe the labour strike strategy of throwing one’s clogs into machinery to stop up production. Graciela Carnevale locked attendees at a glass-fronted gallery as an experiment to see how long before they’d turn to violence (Credit: Graciela Carnevale/Spai Visor). Let’s consider a brief history of sabotage in the art world – in what ways have artists reckoned with the idea that the most powerful acts of creation might be those of destruction? “Art has initiated revolutions throughout time and will continue to do so.” This spring, Gilon joined University of California Santa Cruz students in an effort to spark that kind of change with a work of public art. Art and power have always been begrudging bedfellows. But they also raise thorny questions about whether public art can be a catalyst for change—or merely a distraction. Of course, propaganda, allegories, and calls to action are not themselves action, and art that represents change or resistance does not necessarily affect change or resistance. 1. Yes art can change the world. “I believe art is one of the most powerful tools we have to communicate and make changes within our society,” said Gilon. ', to which his response was the Inside Out Project, which has since drawn nearly It can make the world felt. A cultural and artistic center at the top of Morro da Providência, Brazil. In 2014, Lawrence Abu Hamdan made the work The All-Hearing, for which he asked two sheikhs in Cairo not to deliver their usual weekly Friday sermons, but instead to deliver city-wide speeches about the dangers of noise pollution as a public health issue. And moreover, if it is possible for artworks themselves to actually interfere in political and social structures, what does that disruption look like? Often, it is an intervention that begins as a minor interference that multiplies or magnifies to result in the destruction of a system. The above text is an excerpt from a new retrospective book called JR: Can Art Change the World? In this way, he provokes the viewer to consider who determines cultural and monetary values alike. How can artists best promote social change? Art is often a vehicle for social change. Culture and pandemic: can art change the world? Art and activism, unlikely friends? And on a symbolic level, the action represents a rejection of the legacies of the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), a defining period in Chinese history. There are moments in history—in the 1930s and the 1920s and since—where very direct address of general social problems by artists has had something of an effect. Yes, art can change the world, but not in the way the modernist avant-garde hoped for. Presumably, these works of visual art are, in fact, the songs of the exhibition’s title. Art has the power to elicit compassion and generosity. Art does not demonstrate for people what they should do. It's one of the biggest questions that comes to mind when we really, truly think about the value of art: can art make a difference? A century later, in 1969, Daniel Buren was excluded from the famous exhibition When Attitudes Become Form in Bern, and in response he covered the city’s billboards with his stripes, effectively inserting himself into the show. French street artist JR uses his camera to show the world its true face, by pasting photos of the human face across massive canvases. It can give voice to the politically or socially disenfranchised. Sometimes, it has the effect of moral licensing – instilling in its viewer a false sense of having accomplished something. Let’s consider a brief history of sabotage in the art … advertisement The decision to … 3 talking about this. And often, it is perpetrated anonymously. But the word in fact derives from the act of stomping, disruptively, during official speeches. Still other sabotage-like methods galvanise viewers to take action. CAN ART CHANGE THE WORLD ? Nato Thompson is artistic director of Philadelphia Contemporary, and was chief curator of Creative Time from 2007 to 2017. The Governor General (or GG for short) was addressing an Art Matters Forum in Calgary just days after the Haitian earthquake (a message even more poignant today, given … The organization was created by the French artist JR to bring continuity to his art projects.The main activities are Inside Out Project (the studio and the photobooth trucks), Casa Amarela (a cultural center located in Morro da Providência in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), École Kourtrajmé (a free cinema and arts school in the suburbs of Paris) and Refettorio Paris (a social kitchen by chefs and artists aiming to reduce food waste and bring dignity to people in need), among other non-profit art projects. Can obstruction, or outright destruction, be as powerful as the act of creation? At TED2011, he makes his audacious TED Prize wish: to use art to turn the world inside out. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. This is one way that art can engage with the world to change the world. JR first garnered international attention at age 27 when he won the TED Prize in 2011, which raised the question, 'Could art change the world? I don't think art can change the world.