A Small Activist Art History

11 May 2020

A picture says more than a thousand words. It is a bit of a trite saying, but it is often true. A dry newspaper article about a terrible event often leaves less of an impression than a photograph or a painting of the same event. Art, therefore, is a very appropriate means of raising wrongs in the world. Someone who also does this is Banksy, a name I am sure you all know. With his art, this anonymous artist discusses all kinds of events in the world. From street art about war in the Middle East to the recently created artwork in which not superman, but a corona nurse is the hero of a little boy. While art used to be mainly used to show the ruling system in a good light, artistic talent has been used to express a (political) opinion for much longer. So too in these five works, all of which address a problem in the world in a way that may or may not be subtle.

[1]

Massacre in Korea - Pablo Picasso (1951)

When the Spanish Picasso's name comes to mind, one quickly thinks of angular paintings with lots of colours and unusually shaped creatures. At first glance, there doesn't seem to be much political about that. Yet his political views resonate in a fair amount of the world-famous artist's work. After all, besides being a painter, draughtsman and father, Picasso was also a communist and pacifist. One of his political works is Massacre in Korea, painted in 1951. As the name might suggest, this work is about Korea. Here, from 1950 to 1953, a battle was fought between the communist North and the pro-Western South. On the right side of the painting, robotic soldiers of the US army are depicted aiming their weapons at Korean women and children. As a museum visitor, you look straight at the innocent victims in their desperate, calm or mortified faces at the moment just before they die.

This painting was probably made in response to the massacre in the town of Sinchon, in which anti-Communist troops killed about 35,000 people. Yet nothing in the painting (except the title) refers specifically to this event, nor to Korea. The work can therefore not only be understood as a criticism of the violence in Korea during the war, but also as a criticism of violence in other places and times. You can see this, for instance, in the sword the soldier is holding on the right; a weapon that was used for a long time, but which is not necessarily linked to the war in Korea.

Retrieved from Massacre in Korea came in for much criticism. Because the painting did not adhere to the official art movement of the Soviet Union (so-called socialist realism), Picasso could not count on praise from the communist corner. The pro-Western public was not a fan of the painting either, as it opposed Western violence. Fortunately, Picasso himself seemed unaffected by all the criticism and said of the work, “Although nobody likes it, it is something, isn't it?”[2]

[3]

The Problem we all live with - Norman Rockwell (1964)

On the morning of 14 November 1960, Ruby Bridges walked to her school in New Orleans. Now there were probably more children walking to school that morning, but for this six-year-old girl and for the rest of the city, it was a special event. After all, it was the first time in New Orleans that a black girl had attended a school that had previously only admitted white children. Ruby was accompanied by four US Marshals whose job it was to protect the girl from the angry crowd that had gathered in front of the William Frantz school, protesting Ruby's arrival. It was a crowd formed not by radical thinkers but rather by very ‘ordinary’ and ‘decent’ Americans. Once they arrived at school, all the teachers refused to teach Ruby, except one teacher. In the first week of school, all parents of Ruby's classmates pulled their sons and daughters out of school, leaving only Ruby and the teacher.

At The problem we all live with artist Norman Rockwell depicts Ruby's walk to school. In this painting too, she is accompanied by four guards, depicted anonymously and headless. On the wall behind the five, signs of the protest against Ruby are visible in the form of racist graffiti and a tomato that has just been thrown.

The painting appeared on the cover of the US magazine Look in 1964. At first, the public was angry. After all, they were used to cosy drawings by Rockwell that showed American life in a beautiful light. As a result, the serious and critical artwork arrived as a shock. And while there was certainly a section of readers who were no longer fans of Rockwell after 1964, there was also a large group of people who, following the painting, began to think better and longer about the racism problem they all lived (and live?) with.

[4]

The Coca-Cola Project - Cildo Meireles (1970)

Of course, art does not always come in the form of a painting in a museum. The following work is a prime example of this: it is activist art in the form of recyclable Coca-Cola bottles that remain in circulation for as long as possible. We are talking about the Coca-Cola project which Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles started in 1970, called Insertions into Ideologoical Circuits.

In 1970, a military dictatorship prevailed in Brazil. After the coup of 31 March 1964, power was in the hands of the military, with the active support of America. In this dictatorship, freedom of expression was restricted, so it could be risky to simply make art that criticised the system. Yet Meireles found a way to spread his discontent as far as possible, unnoticed. On emptied reusable Coca-Cola bottles, the artist printed various critical texts, questions and illustrations in white letters. On the empty bottle, this text was almost invisible, but when the bottle came back into circulation, the new buyer could clearly see the text contrasting with the dark cola.

The use of precisely Coca-Cola bottles was not a random choice. Indeed, the big American soft drink brand was a symbol in Brazil of America's grip on the country. One of the most famous bottles from Meireles' project bears the text: YANKEES GO HOME! With these words, the artist criticises the way America interferes in the economy, politics and culture of all kinds of other countries in order to retain as much power as possible itself. In Brazil, as mentioned, the United States supported dictatorship, a system under which the people suffered considerably. Although Meireles had strong views on the ruling system, he did not start the project just to make his own voice heard. In fact, the edited bottles always included an exhortation to join the project and print texts on cola bottles themselves. This gave the people a chance to criticise anonymously without being in danger, something that can already be very special in a dictatorship.

[5]

Free South Africa - Keith Haring (1984)

Dancing puppets and barking dogs, formed by simple lines. These are typical images for (street) artist Keith Haring. But, hidden in the lines of his artworks is often a social message. Especially in the last years of his life, when Haring already knew he would die young of AIDS, he made many activist artworks: about the fight against AIDS, about inequality, about racism. An example is the above work from 1985.

The artwork features two puppets: one black and one white. And although the black puppet is much larger, he is kept ‘on a leash’ by the white puppet. The figures in the painting symbolise the situation in South Africa. At the time, the black population in this country was well outnumbered by some 80%, but was fiercely oppressed by the white minority under the apartheid system.[6] This work depicts another hopeful situation. The black puppet has kicked over his ruler, he is about to lift inequality

The original three-part Free South Africa-series is now officially exhibited. But hanging in a museum was not at all the goal Haring had in mind with his work. What he wanted was more attention to inequality in South Africa. So in 1985 he picked up one of the paintings he made a year earlier, added the text Free South Africa toe, he had the image printed 20,000 times and distributed the posters throughout New York. Some of these posters sell for a lot of money online today, but with a trip to the Stedelijk, you can admire the original series (and many more of Haring's work).

Flower Thrower - Banksy (2005)[7]

In the past few paragraphs, we have moved a bit through history with each work of art. For the last work, we arrive at the artist with whom this piece also began. An artist who is still active today: Banksy. The above work is one of the most famous images by the anonymous artist. It shows a boy about to throw not a bomb or a stone, but a bunch of flowers. It is a call for peace at a time and in a place where peace is far away. Indeed, the first time Banksy painted the flower thrower was in Jerusalem, on the wall separating Israel from Palestine. The image stands up against aggression, and for the preservation of hope.

Besides the artists discussed in this piece, there are of course many more artists who have an opinion and express it. And although I have mainly discussed paintings today, activism in art goes much further, and there is much more to be found on the internet: think literature, to photography, poetry, drama...

So are you sitting at home right now with nothing to do? Try reading an activist play (e.g. A doll's house By Hendrik Ibsen). Or are you still looking for an outlet for all your activist needs that you can't express with group protests in this day and age? Grab a paper, grab the colour pencils and go wild.

[2] http://www.blogmuseupicassobcn.org/2020/01/massacre-in-korea-the-guernica-of-the-cold-war/?lang=en

[3] The Problem We All Live With, Norman Rockwell, 1964..Story illustration for Look, January 14, 1964. From the permanent collection of Norman Rockwell Museum.

[4] (c) Cildo Meireles / Photo (c) Tate

[5] Free South Africa, Keith Haring, 1985

[6] https://historiek.net/apartheid-1948-1990/6826/

[7] Flower Thrower, Banksy, 2006. Photo by Arik Bennado, October 18^th