Visual arts as a mean of protest

Visual arts as a mean of protest

Art as a mean of protest is also called “protest art” . It’s a kind of art that exist all across the genre of arts. In visual and audio art, from stand up comedy to poesy, painting music etc..

I am going to focus on the visuals arts that are painting, happenings, street art and installation because otherwise it’s an endless topic.

First I’ll try to explain what is protest art even if it’s more or less obvious then I’ll present 3 different issues of my choosing that are, war, consumerism and ecology and then I’ll conclude and we’ll have a debate if you want of course.

Pablo Picasso once said “ painting is not done to decorate apartments. it’s an instrument of war”

Protest art is a broad term, it refers to art as an instrument of ideological struggle. The engaged artists create an artwork that express their vision of issues in society. Those issues are numerous and can vary according to the historical period or to an event that happened.
the means of expressions also are numerous and vary according to the artist, the evolution of techniques..
protest art can be called engaged art or activist art.

With the following examples I’ll try to show you how art can be used to express the artists’ criticisms.

first example: war and conflicts
otto dix an Dutch painter and ww1. He participed to ww1 and he was deeply shocked and traumatized after it. Here you can see one of his most famous painting “the skat players”. It depicts war invalids palying cards. This painting was pretty shocking at the time because it actually showed the “horror” and the consequences the war had on soldiers and nearly no one did this before.

In 1937 pablo Picasso painted “Guernica” to show the world the consequences of the gernica bombing during the Spanish civil war.
another example, more recently the street artist Bansky painted in 2005 on the Israeli west bank barrier to denounce the Israeli-palestinian conflict.

Second example: consumerism
in 1987this eye catching photomontage by Barbara kruger entitled “I shop therefore I am” reference to descart “ I think therefore I am” criticizes the fact that people buy thing for the image and not by need of it.

More recently in 2013 the veja|regarde happening by Marcello denny and Marcos bulhoes took place in paris. We could see blindfolded people covered in clay carrying shopping bags wamking through the city. It was made to denounce blind mas consumption and to provoque a reflexion about how we buy things and where it come from.

Third example: ecology
It’s a recent issue. Artists used their work to provoke a reaction an open a reflexion on the fact that we need to protect our planet.
pretty early in 1968 argentinian artist Nicolas uriburu poured down a green colorant in the grand canal of venice to denounce water pollution. He did the same in NY paris and Buenos aires the following years.
in the 2000s a lot of street artists began to expose the pollution problem in big cities by doing what is called “reverse graffiti” they cleaned walls clogged with pollution whith high pressurized water to create their artworks.
Last month during the cop 21, the Danish artist Olafur Eliasson created an installation and put pieces of greenland’s icebergs on the place of pantheon in paris and let it melt on the ground to show to the public the impact of the climate change on the planet and the ice field.

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