Political Art & Activism

   

   I missed class the day we watched the film. I searched Netflix for it and only found another one of the Yes Men films, "Yes Men Save the World", so I watched that instead.
  
    I'd heard of the Yes Men beforehand. I always found their their hijinks engaging and inspiring. In this film the pair set off to "save the world." Doing such pretty much consisted of them trying to get corporations to own up to their actions that do physical harm to both the environment and human life.
   
   A huge theme within the film was that the corporations valued money and profit over that of human life; a human life was expendable as long as it brought a decent amount of profit or acclaim to the company.
   
   In perhaps their most insane stunt, they impersonated a spokesman for Exxon. They put on a lecture showing that a human body could be used for its oil properties and gave out "human" candles along with a memorial video of the man who "donated" his body for the project when he found out he was terminally ill.
   
   Of course there was upheaval and disgust from the audience members. Who in their right mind, or conscious, would use the human body to create such things? It is a monstrosity and immoral.
   However, I think this insane action on the part of the Yes Men was trying to show how little the value is on human life by these types of corporations. One company tried stating that the increase of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere was not such a bad thing. In fact they put together an entire ad campaign that stated, "Carbon monoxide isn't pollution, it's life, because we breath it."
   
   Another part of the film that astounded me was the way that the pair was portrayed in the media. Technically yes, the Yes Men can be defined as "pranksters." But they way in which the BBC and American news organizations portrayed their actions was ludicrous. They made them seem that they were thoughtless and heartless in their actions and they are effecting the people they are trying to help, such as when they said that the New Orleans housing project was opening up again or that Dow Chemical was finally taking responsibility for the disaster in Bhopal.
   
   I too thought of the false hope that the two created. It obviously makes sense to think that route, but what disgusted me the most was that the news clearly never even talked to these people as they were not upset about being given a false hope, but rather thankful to the Yes Men for pointing out these issues, showing that a corporation can take action, but won't and giving them that hope and knowledge that someone actually notices and cares about their struggles. 
   
   This leads me to the article, "An Open Letter to Critics Writing About Political Art." In the article, it says, "...What we are saying is that political artists, if they want to change the world, need to think about what they want their work to do. And critics, if they want to seriously interrogate and evaluate this work, have to both examine those political aims and ask whether the artist has succeeded.
It is hard to truly succeed as a political artist. Many times, an artist aims short and sets out to “intervene” and “raise awareness” about a social problem or political issue. This is the low hanging fruit of political art. Other work sets out to have a direct impact in a discernible way. Using art to defeat a pending policy, or elect a politician. This is more ambitious on the part of the artist, and easier – if not boring – for the critic of political art to judge..."   Now, I am not going to get into whether or not I view what the Yes Men are doing as fine ART or general political activism, because that is a whole different discussion. But what I do want to write about it is the blase' way that political art seems to be interpreted. For me if the work is political and really, genuinely trying to change the world, I'm not so sure I care what it looks like or is made out of, or whether it is considered low or high art, as long as the message is there. This might have something to do with my upbringing as my grandfather was a politician and lobbyist in Nevada for over 25 years.    I can't say that I like the way that the writes pens that the more ambitious that the artist is for their message, the more easy and boring it is for the critic. I can guarantee that political artists who are trying to spread a message could give a shit what an art critic thinks of their work.    Take street art for example, while not my personal cup of tea, it has become both influential and popular through artists such as Space Invader, Banksy and Sheppard Fairey. Fairey created the "Hope" Barack Obama poster that was a huge image created for his 2008 campaign and had since been sued for copyright over the image used. His image while not the wholly reason for Obama's election, definitely gave the American public an image to associate with him and it was a positive one. How critics took this work, I cannot say. I think they would likely consider it low brow in many ways, but regardless this image sparked something bigger than anyone realized and I doubt any nay saying on behalf of some fancy art critic would stop that message. The message (at least in political art) is perhaps more important than the art itself.