The Political Artist

The continuation of a random and ongoing series on the nature of art.

It’s extremely hard to be an artist and to be politically astute. I mean, each is difficult in its own way for its own reasons, but both together? Hard.

                “Oh, yes. But important.”

                Maybe, but what walk sees you already plagued with self-doubt more than the artistic one? Throw into the mix the existential hand-wringing of wondering what good an artist is doing in the midst of all this bad and, well, the problem sure isn’t in anyway eased.

                Fact is, in my own art, especially my writing, I want to feel like I’m making a difference, that I’m doing good. Blame it on too many superhero comic books as a kid, blame it on a Catholic foundation that never took but still leaves its guilt. Blame it on a male need to leave a legacy. Blame it on an immaturity that I never graduated to the level of self-servitude and malice that more and more people I hear refer to as “the way it is” or “the world.” I want to write pieces of merit, pieces that are important. However, when that’s exclusively art—that is, the exploration of what it means to be a human, the exposure of this life—I often wonder what difference I am actually making. Is the metaphor taking?

                It’s all I can do not to go on a political rant right now. I’m enraged at the state of roll-over denial in the province of Albertan and Canadian politics. I’m sick of people accepting transparent lies and I’m scared to death about how much it's really working on our lives; it’s not just “same shit different day politics.” It’s happening. Bad is winning. We’re being ruled by corporate whores and all I want to do is rip apart every lie that Jim Prentice has fed the public in this province since Christmas.

                I went on a political rant. I lied, I knew I was doing it, I admit it. That’s why I feel I can judge liars like Prentice and his old boss our prime minister.

                That feels good, that ranting. I don’t know how much good it’s doing because people in this province and of late this nation don’t like facts: they like backing a winner. What he does matters a lot less than the fact that he’s winning. I don’t know the good I’m doing, as I say, but it feels good to point that fault out. It feels right. 

                And then suddenly I’m less an artist, more a political writer, or at least an opiner. A leftist political blogger living in Alberta. There goes my readership.

                It’s tough finding the balance between art and reality in writing, and at times like these that much more difficult because you want to use your art on reality.

                It’s the fine line. Times like these you want to wield your words against the lies being spouted, to rail against injustice and misinformation, to use the abilities you have to arm people against their own ignorance.

                But then, where’s the art in that anymore?

                A hero of mine—for his work, not his character—is Hunter S. Thompson, who wrote some of his best work about and against a corrupt right-wing administration. Familiar times. But, his greatest achievement—despite it’s autobiographical nature—was a work of art, not politics or journalism. No one ever reads Las Vegas after being turned on by On the Campaign Trail. Fear and Loathing always begins in Vegas.

                Many artists are political, but when you let politics take over your art and you’re not Thompson, it can certainly act as a distraction, as a hedging of bets. Jack of all trades. . . Many convicted and gifted artists—Margaret Atwood pops up—only let the themes of society penetrate their work, but then as public figures are highly political. This is wonderful. Artists should be political, because far too many pop stars are given far too much air time for their fumbling opinions.

                These are dark times in Alberta, in Canada. We have an unimaginative, megalomaniacal, self-serving, and lying premier. More than your average politician, I mean. And if Harper is re-elected this fall, the damage he has done to the Canadian identity, to our culture, and to the standard of truthfulness I thought we held our leaders up to—both he and Prentice have convinced their electorate that they hold presidential powers in a constitutional monarchy—will be forever lost.

                Caught me ranting again.

                Artists are obligated to do good and expose truth. In a time like this, when there is so much bad and so many lies, how are we to avoid turning our art to politics? I suppose we’re not.