Is All (Good) Art Political?

In my last post, I looked at how all art can be viewed through various lenses of identity. By applying concepts like race or class to our art, we can start to see certain political undercurrents, even in work that is not overtly political. So it begs the question, if these lenses can be applied anywhere, is all art political?

To answer this, we’ll have to start by defining what we even mean by politics. Merriam-Webster offers several definitions, ranging from “the art or science of government” to “the political opinions or sympathies of a person” to “the total complex of relations between people living in society.” These definitions encompass…a lot. So for a single definition, what if we considered politics to be the art or science of how a society is governed and structured? It can include everything from federal laws, to company policies, to unwritten codes of conduct that inform how our communities operate.

Given these terms, does all art reflect some reality about our social structures, such that it may be considered political? Consider this quote from Toni Morrison, which I encountered in this recent article by Alan Harrison:

All of that art-for-art’s-sake stuff is BS. What are these people talking about? Are you really telling me that Shakespeare and Aeschylus weren’t writing about kings? All good art is political! There is none that isn’t. And the ones that try hard not to be political are political by saying, ‘We love the status quo.’

Or even more broadly, consider the quote attributed to artist and activist Ai Weiwei, “Everything is art. Everything is politics.” These artists are suggesting that, yes—when you create something, something that says anything about the world or offers any kind of representation of it, it inevitably exists in some relation to the laws and rules that govern society. In other words, it cannot exist in a vacuum. Art may be overtly political, commenting directly on particular social issues. Or its politics may be more subtle, with even seemingly apolitical art still possessing some values with regard to identity and social mores. A sitcom, a pop song, a pulpy murder mystery novel—all are presenting some level of representation (on gender roles, on how people of different socioeconomic status live, etc.), and could be taken as either supporting or challenging a particular set of rules or expectations. So is The West Wing political? Of course. But so is I Love Lucy, Iron Man, “Oops!…I Did It Again,” or Bob the Builder.  

Is it really the case, though, that there is no art without a perspective on race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality, economics, law, government, or anything else that could fall under the vast umbrella of politics? Is there really no apolitical art? Or just no “good” apolitical art? To test this, I went into Photoshop and attempted to make some apolitical art.

Here's a fish. But is he political? I don’t…think so? (I have literally called him “Apolitical Fish” in the image file name.) Perhaps even giving him a gender could be seen as a potentially political layer of identity, so we could even remove that and just call it a few lines on a page, meant to illustrate a fish in the loosest of ways. It’s art, but not representing anything about society (and barely representing anything about fish), so I think we can consider it to have no real politics. By a similar logic, I could play a few notes on a piano, and call it a song, but without it representing anything, it would be hard for me to consider it political. (We could, of course, consider the political factors that have led to us having pianos in the United States, or discussing fish and pianos in English vs. any other language, but that feels like splitting hairs into concepts that are more related to the art than expressed within the art itself.)

And lastly, the point that may be the one that makes the most difference, is it “good” art, as Morrison qualified in her quote? I don’t know what Morrison would think of it, but I imagine she wouldn’t find it relevant to the conversations she wants to have. (Sorry Apolitical Fish.)

All of this is, however, starting to get into semantic arguments that are clearly not the most useful ways to talk about art. So instead of getting too bogged down into the literal meaning of wondering whether all art, or all good art, is political, what if we just went with the spirit of the question? Is at least the majority of all art, if not all of it, politically relevant? Does most art have political undercurrents, even if it may not seem like it does? It does indeed! And this is important when we want to think about the values a particular work may be reinforcing, even if that work isn’t overtly commenting on politics or social issues. 

I know some people with a lot of experience in the arts may already be used to this way of thinking, but as this is one of the first posts in the blog, I thought it would be good to write something that gets everyone on the same page. Even if we're not all fans of politics, we can't, like our art, divide ourselves into "political" or "apolitical" people. Unlike Apolitical Fish, there's no escaping politics for us. So the next question becomes, how can we better navigate such a semantically complicated world? There's no easy answer, but at least we can start by getting better at noticing the values and messages of even the most unassuming art we encounter every day.