Art and politics. Exhibition in London

By Paul Mitchell:

USA Today: A political outlook emerging amongst artists

13 November 2006

USA Today, Royal Academy of Arts, London (6 October to 4 November 2006)

The recent USA Today exhibition at Britain’s Royal Academy in London was a welcome sign that a political outlook is emerging amongst artists.

Much of the art on display reflected the growing revulsion with the war in Iraq, the Bush administration and deepening social inequality felt by artists and broad layers of the public.

It reflects an objective process that lays the basis for a new perspective amongst artists and viewers.

The exhibition, displaying 100 new works from the Saatchi gallery, was the first chance most people in Britain would have had to see firsthand the output from some 38 artists born in the US or now working there.

Perhaps the most directly political art was that by French-born Jules De Balincourt, now living in New York, who makes use of a naïve style to draw attention to questions of imperialist power and class politics.

US World Studies II (2005) is an upside down map of the US with brightly-coloured states in all the wrong places, which bears down oppressively on a stunted world—grey and indistinct—squashed into the bottom of the picture.

US World Studies III (2005) is a similar map of the US but shows the amount of money donated to the Republican party in each state by corporate benefactors such as Walmart and Tricon (KFC, Pizza Hut).

In United We Stood (2005) the words United We Stood loom out of the picture in spotlight-like lines of red, white and blue resembling the opening titles of a film, harking back to a mythical golden era when America was not so divided.

In the brooding People who play and people who pay (2004) the rich and beautiful lounge idle by the poolside, oblivious to the predominantly black hotel staff working away in the glass-fronted rooms that overlook them.

Josephine Meckseper also addresses class issues in CDU-CSU (2001).

In a scene reminiscent of countless fashion magazines, two wealthy Aryan looking blondes sprawl on a sofa sporting chunky gold necklaces bearing the words CDU and CSU—abbreviations for the Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union, Germany’s two main right wing parties. Counterposed to this ostentation, in the background, just in view, lurks a maid.