Art?

I see no anti-anti-terrorism art. What art? I see no anti-coalition of the willing art. Where's all this art? I work in the arts, I don't see any of it.

What I see here in this article is a political argument that's got nothing to do with art, the arts or artists. Post modernist rubbish created in student and dramatic workshops and the like isn't art. It's perhaps political expression, but hardly art.

Please don't paint art and artists with the same brush that you paint student activists with. I see a big difference.

Maximus: you don’t think the war has spawned all kinds of films, songs and literature? Is it cosy under that rock on the moon?

Despite all the art that’s been created in response to the current political madness, I can’t help but feel it’s a little more stale of late. It seems more of an exercise in preaching to the converted – the rest of the population simply ignores.

So how do you get their attention? I say the political artists should declare WAR!

Wait, that’s no good. What gets peoples attention these days? Celebrity marriage...skin cream with ‘rejuvicell’ technology…terrible sitcoms…horrendous right-wing ‘current affairs’ programs…hmm, we have a conundrum. It seems what artists attempt to draw people’s attention to is the very thing that turns people off.

Still, gotta keep on creating. If people don’t listen, yell louder.

Spendocrat,

The terrorist conflict may have "spawned all kinds of films, songs and literature", as you say, but my point was - what's that got to do with art?

Films, songs and literature are well... Gosh, they're just films, songs and literature. In this case political films, songs and literature, but not art!

The Marx manifesto of 1848 was literature, but it wasn't art and neither was Mein Kampf, see my point?

Art has a more specific existence than political propaganda material and shouldn't be claimed by either side of the great political divide.

You're right that it shouldn't be claimed by either side. But it also goes without saying that the majority of the art that happens to be political, well, it's fairly obvious what side it's usually on.

I'll think you'll find that song, film and literature are very much art by almost any definition. That's why they come under the classification 'the arts'.

Are we arguing about terminology here? Because people can define art in many different ways, which is fine. Officially speaking though, those three art forms (heh) are definitely art.

To Susan,

Full marks for having the courage to bring out clearly what is wrong with our world today, a return to 19th century politics, one thing being, that in those days though colonialism was largely based on hypocritic Christian reasoning, that the indigenous were not fit to occupy such Promised Lands as a Good God would want, we are even much more hypocritic now, because lies are being told, as in Iraq, about promises of democracy and self-rule, as indeed, were told to both T E Lawrence and his gallant Iraqis near the end of WW1, about a same self rule.

The problem today, Susan, is that many of our leaders would like to have many of our academics locked up, not so much your art category, but especially in the Schools of Humanities, where I myself, have a mature-age post-grad in Politics, History, and Macro-Economics, and still looking for advice there, rather than from certain politicians, including our leaders, who either don’t know, or have shut their minds to the disgusting track records that the Angliphonic Alliance, the Yanks and the Brits, apart from developing oilfields, that genuine historians tell about the modern Middle East. Oh dear, I forgot to mention about dear little Australia, being also Anglipholic, and tagging along as well.

It is interesting that last night on LateLine, Tony Jones was interviewing a British journalist, who has the same historical argument as you have, Susan, about terrorism, that it is mainly brought on through Western intrusion and injustice in the Middle-East since the end of the Ottoman Empire, mostly, of course, for contraband and hegemon, as our political scientists would say.

Cheers, Susan, keep up the good work.

George C, WA - Bushbre

I think Susan's piece is beautifully written. That is art.

The art of Michael Moore's films against the "War on Terror" and of Bush’s past financial reliance on Saudi money, is art.

Its true that art against the "War on Terror (WoT)" is misconstrued, by some, as condoning the slaughter of 9/11 and “aiding the enemy”. This makes anti WoT art largely off limits in Hollywood and elsewhere in other mediums.

It’s true that artists are (or should be) apart from politics. Certainly they should not be beholden to governments. This frequently places them on the "left". But this gives them an internationalist equipment that is very useful in a democracy - an overview to criticise the government.

To bare witness when governments get it wrong.