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.

Good on you, Plantagenet,

You might have spelt bear witness wrong, and I'm still not sure, but it sounds the same, so what the hell. Anyhow, talking about the meaning of art, my naturally artistic wife tells me that art simply means being trained in a vocation by professional people, be it painting, acting, or architecture, the word artisan no doubt relating to the more secondry abilities, but still art. Now getting on to politics, we could get nasty and bring the word artful into it, as we could reckon some of our
politicians and even leaders could be categorised.

Anyhow, as a reasonably successful historical writer, one could say, that because the art of painting and drawing can also realistically portray history, as well as insightly reasoning as pencilled by a skilled cartoonist,
as we see in our public newspapers, why should not Susan have the ability as well as the right to criticise the actions of these so-called superior Bod's now trying to run the world

Well, in light of the above posts, I stand corrected. It seems that by popular decree anything that is created is art. Nay, not just created, but anything, everything in the world is art, apparently.

However, the Oxford Dictionary is a tad more limiting -

art • noun 1: the expression of creative skill through a visual medium such as painting or sculpture. 2: the product of such a process; paintings, drawings, and sculpture collectively. 3: (the arts) the various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, and drama. 4: (arts) subjects of study primarily concerned with human culture (as contrasted with scientific or technical subjects). 5: a skill: the art of conversation.

Now according to Oxford, if Susan McDonald refers to "art" then she's talking about the visual, plastic medium only. My point, where is it? I haven't seen it.

But if she had used the correct word "arts", then she would have given the correct connotation to her headline. But language changes and it now appears that "art" is a more broadly applied word by the populace to all manner of things.

For me, this is going to take some getting used to. This now means that Blokesworld is art, Big Brother is art, the walls of my house are art, the tyres on my car are art, this very post I'm now writing is art and I too must be art myself. In fact, even terrorism and war must be art. This is all very perplexing.

So frankly, to remain sane in my response, I think I'll go back and stick to the ol' Oxford Dictionary interpretation of the word art for now and let the rest of you folks wallow in your post modernist delusions.

Like I said Maximus, it's open to interpretation. What's art to you may not be to someone else. The author, I believe, was referring to a broader 'arts'. You don't have to agree with it.

Late breaking news -

Is this an example of Susan McDonald's "Art"?

The Australian
'Peace bomb' outside gallery
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16843003%255E1702,00.html

You can't help but see the irony of it.

Good luck all.

Yes, we got it, people interpret the definition of art differently. Point taken. And taken. And taken.

YAWN

Governance in Australia, gone sterile below the knees. Part-One

After September 11, 2001, Derrida's question on what basis terrorism “can claim a political content” and thus be “distinguished from ordinary crime”, is a most vital question!

Why? Because this question, like no other recent, has rocked the western-consciousness’ proving our clay feet.

We have lost grip in Australia, as we clone test new policies from UK & USA. Failing to deliver on a home-grown audit, we witness the guts ripped at the core of the Australian communities, through poor planning and lack of regional awareness. For example; explain the connection between Agenda 21 (UN Rio agenda) and the story of CYPLUS in Cape York. While there is a connection, I do not see the benefits of these policies imprinting the inspired minds of the people in Cape York. This is because LA21 needs to be at the heart of Crime Prevention, and work from the ground up!

We, have knowledge, the right keywords implemented through policies, but the human contribution is lost at local regional levels. We need people to make these policies actual. This is to say; the people left standing, at ground levels, are tired of the "shirk-fight” caused by the imposing practice of a two-party politics, that’s making counterfeit-vein cheese out of the whole system!

As artists we have backed away from the mark. I see very little of the "da da" candid unreserved-cultural progress-live here. Instead, I find a nation of opposing passives. A token form of multi-culturalism that is popularised by it's own colonial past, without conscious or care for the future. A multi-tier engagement that has forgotten, how to move forward.

Governance in Australia, gone sterile below the knees. Part-Two

Our leaders are given access to forums of wealth and piety, however, like everyone else, they are more corrupted by their own individualistic agenda's now, than ever. They slip-in for their "role call", ticking on basic exercises at the table, do a quick photo shoot and then pass by. This culture transcends in motion all the way down to ground level. The point here is; that these leaders are out of touch with the base.

Officialdom is all the time more clumsy, bearing no adherence for the need for collective "responsibility", or anything related to integrated policies depicted immediately after the second world war? We see our government system as singly, a "party" (mixed-up and divided into two) wroughting with an abyss that defies what we might otherwise chuck out over the abdication of a lazy fundamentalism, that can be sometimes found in either science or religion.

I see Crime Prevention in Australia, the UK and USA as completely misunderstood. Our community agendas have never been in more danger. Recent political content on the matter, lacks the distillations required to deal with the "causal elements" of any crime – leaving the claim wide-open to the sounding alert of terrorism, as it controls a psyche hooked on chaos, each day we ignore to necessitate a new local agenda.