An Eloquent Presentation is Louder Than An Angry Roar
on Nick Cave’s “Forothermore” and activism in art
Nick Cave: Forothermore is an ode to those who, whether due to racism, homophobia, or other forms of bigotry, live their lives as the “other” — and a celebration of the way art, music, fashion, and performance can help us envision a more just future. — Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
As Nick Cave’s “Forothermore” comes to an end and his new collaborative exhibition “The Color Is” opens, there seems to be no better time to share some thoughts provoked by these colorful and meaningful installations and sculptures.
A Brief Exhibition Review
“Forothermore,” exhibiting at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, is a multi-media installation showcasing Nick Cave’s most iconic and representative pieces, including Spinner Forest, sound suits, A·mal·gam, and Speak Louder.
The themes are nothing we are unfamiliar with. Rather, too many artists have developed their creative endeavors around equity and diversity. However, today’s artists rarely produce such well-crafted pieces on a social topics. Instead, we often see a careless display of racial elements, sexual organs, and slogans roughly tied to an activism cause.
From Soundsutis to A·mal·gam to the lesser-known sculptures and installations, each piece was so meaningfully crafted that, I could capture the messages they carry without reading the descriptions.
When I look at Soundsutis, I feel the “others” hiding behind colorfulness. Meanwhile, the sculptures made me feel the weight carried through history, a quiet yet powerful statement of empowerment, and the pure admiration of black culture and handicrafts.
Essentially, this exhibition helped me rediscover the beauty in my experience as one of the others, but also the beauty of a population’s culture with which I’m unfamiliar. It encouraged me to learn more about marginalized groups, their culture, history, and community. The artist didn’t have to say a single word. The art did all the work.
Activist Art
Humans seem to be quite fond of making statements. Watch a TV show to kill time, and suddenly the character is lecturing the audience. The same happens with activism in art, except the expression and methods tend to be more blatant — if not cruder.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to make a difference. Nor is there anything wrong with leveraging art, visual art, in our case, as the media for activism.
When you think about it, every artist has a statement. In that case, art, by nature, is already so full of opinions. Even for a Plein air artist who paints nothing but the lake in their hometown, who am I to say their statement of capturing nature’s moments of beauty is any less valuable than that of an artist focusing on one of the social injustice issues?
To quote Ai Weiwei here:
If anything, art is… about morals, about our belief in humanity. Without that, there simply is no art.
Therefore, justifying the value of a piece of art with its subject matter i,s ridiculous as art is by nature advocative. When looking at activist art, we should evaluate these pieces the same way we do with all other art:
- Conceptual development (thought process)
- Craftsmanship
- Relevance to the subject matter
- Presentation
Claiming a piece of art is activist art doesn’t count. Does said art process the ability to linger in the audience’s mind and force them to keep thinking about the subject?
If not, then the piece fails as activist art.
Artistic Activism
To understand why I emphasize the craftsmanship and thought process to such an extent, we must understand the nature of artistic activism and where art sits on the grand scheme.
According to the Center for Artistic Activism:
Artistic Activism is a dynamic practice combining the creative power of the arts to move us emotionally with the strategic planning of activism necessary to bring about social change.
In other words, art plays the role to invoke emotions and promote thinking, so long-term awareness emerges to support decades of strategic planning and practical work. In other words, the impact created by careless activist art throwing slogans around does not translate into change. As an artist, our only job is to create a narrative so powerful and refined that it challenges people to rethink their normalcy.
With emotional impact comes questioning, and with questioning comes action.
And only carefully-crafted art pieces have the ability o provoke such emotions, whether it’s an outburst of anger or a lasting questioning of our existing system.
Make Art Serve Its Purpose
We are all sick of reading the top 3 tips to do make money at home, or grow your business in XX days articles. Then, how do you think we feel when we come across yet another painting with keywords like equality and respect carelessly thrown onto the canvas? How do we feel when we see another paper cut of a female silhouette with private parts in a different color?
Do you feel empowered, confronted, and enlightened, or do you kind of want to roll your eyes and say: not again.
For me, Forothermore is a solemn yet eloquent voice that’s unable to ignore and a thousand times louder than any hysterical screaming many artists have been pouring into the world. It is also the perfect example of activism art done right.
As an artist, it pains me to see individuals justifying their laziness and lack of foundational skills with the cause they support as if such behavior doesn’t bring more trouble to that cause. Personal preferences aside, bad art doesn’t help the cause. If we truly want to bring attention to a problem — if we truly want to be the voice that provokes change, then we need to do better.
Refine our crafts. Enrich our visual narratives. Create better art.
Create art that will stand for itself without any additional explanation.
Art that resonates with human emotions in shape, form, color, and composition so naturally and profoundly that anybody would relate to the pain, joy, hope, or despair in these pieces.
And then, we can tell them what our creations mean. We can tell them it’s because someone was treated unfairly. It’s because our needs were never seen, and we want that to change for our children.
Not the other way around.
