art and politics Archives - Public Seminar

Democracy

Can Art Reimagine Freedom of Speech?

Curators Carin Kuoni and Laura Raicovich discuss Studies into Darkness

November 1, 2022 • by Carin Kuoni, Laura Raicovich and Lindsey Scharold

Building up to the Trump presidency in the U.S. and, at the same time, coinciding with the rise of authoritarian regimes in democracies in Europe, Hungary, and Italy years prior to that, it seemed very important to look at the Right and its complete embrace of freedom of speech in ...

The Arts

Making Experiences Our Own: A Review of The Amen Corner, 2021

For years, Ijeoma N. Njaka was afraid of failing to understand James Baldwin. Then she went to see his play

October 5, 2022 • by Ijeoma N. Njaka

It is by no means guaranteed that a potential audience member will automatically make a connection between their life experiences, interests, knowledge, emotions, or memories with a piece of art. Interpretive or educational materials, however, can help a viewer create a personally meaningful connection with the art itself....

Making Experiences Our Own: A Review of <em>The Amen Corner</em>, 2021

Literature

Introducing the Latest Issue of James Baldwin Review

Honoring Baldwin’s legacy in a new volume of academic research, criticism, and personal essays

October 3, 2022 • by Justin A. Joyce

As we continue to bring together a mixture of scholarship, reviews, and reflections—from a variety of voices—it is our humble aim to continue to grow our readership and expand the legacy and impact of our namesake author’s moving works and searing insights. ...

Introducing the Latest Issue of <em>James Baldwin Review</em>

Activism

Turning Art into a Political Weapon

Scholars Terri Gordon-Zolov and Eric Zolov discuss the aesthetics and significance of the Chilean estallido

September 21, 2022 • by Terri Gordon-Zolov, Eric Zolov and Jordi Mariné Jubany

Wearing protest iconography was also a way to support the movement. And it was potentially risky. You could wear a handkerchief to cover your eyes from tear gas or to make yourself more anonymous or you could wear a green scarf to support reproductive rights. ...

Activism

The Walls of Santiago

How the Joker and Pikachu become symbols of the Chilean social uprising, in an excerpt from Terri Gordon-Zolov and Eric Zolov’s new book

September 21, 2022 • by Terri Gordon-Zolov and Eric Zolov

Humor provided a powerful weapon in the ﬁght to topple the civic-military dictatorship. The radical deprivation of human rights during the Pinochet regime had secondary costs, among which were the loss of a sense of freedom, spontaneity, and overall well-being. ...

The Arts

How We Remember Leads Us to What We Remember

A review of the Noguchi Museum’s “No Monument” exhibit

May 10, 2022 • by Miko Yoshida

No Monument, contained within one and a half rooms on the first floor of the Noguchi Museum complex, challenges institutional accounts of Japanese Americans detention—often illustrated using photographs of disconsolate families surrounded by a few remaining possessions—by celebrating personal expression in a time of hardship. ...

How We Remember Leads Us to What We Remember

Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts

The Hip-Hop Revolution that Never Happened

Why it’s foolish to expect any form of art to change the world

March 2, 2022 • by John McWhorter

Today, hip-hop lives on without most fans taking seriously the fantasy that it will trigger a revolution or even increase political activism—that conceit now feels as antique as an iPod. Even a form of poetry as viscerally compelling as hip-hop cannot, it would seem, change the world....

The Hip-Hop Revolution that Never Happened

Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts

Revolution in the Service of Poetry?

Would-be fascists on the Right and would-be commissars on the Left

February 28, 2022 • by Greil Marcus

There are would-be fascists on the right and would-be commissars on the left. All they need is institutional power, and they will speak as art, against art: Caesar will become God, and God will tell Caesar it is right....