When it comes to any artwork, the only questions that the artist should ask before they release it to the world are: do the parts fit together in the context of the aesthetic logic of the whole; and do they contribute to the unified effect they are striving towards? The question can never be: will they offend? Once artists start censoring themselves for fear of public opprobrium, art is dead.
Art is killed by the desire to please or conform to public political sensibilities not because its function is to offend, but because its function is to push. Art does not push a particular political line but rather the limits of experience. Art expands the human sensorium; it changes the way we see, hear, feel, touch, and smell the world. It enters into conflict with the commonplace and cliche because it is the result of our creative power. Art that simply repeats what everyone already accepts, or conforms to the limits of polite sensibility is not art because it is not creative. “Creative” does not mean “shocking” or “scandalous.” It means that existing elements of meaning and expression (words, brush strokes, musical notes, etc.) are combined in such a way that something unprecedented is produced.
In order to exist as art, all such creative works must be submitted to public judgment, evaluation, and criticism. However, being open to judgment, evaluation, and criticism, they must also withstand it. If a work cannot withstand criticism it was not yet ready to enter into the world. If it was ready to enter the world, it must hold its own regardless of what critics and people at large think.
To withdraw a work from circulation and instrumentally revise it to accommodate complaints is quite literally the death of art– the extinguishing of the power of creation by the fear of censure and the need to conform.
The liberal left pretends that “cancel culture” is a figment of the right’s imagination. If only that were true. Every week brings new whinging demands for artists to withdraw works that for whatever reason offend sensibilities. These demands are not only politically reactionary, they stem from a deep misunderstanding of the language of art.
Let us consider a few recent examples.
Last week, Beyonce agreed to remove the word “spaz” from a recent release because it was deemed “ableist.” That she would do so is perhaps explicable by the fact that she is a pop artist and does not want to incur the commercial costs of alienating her fans. Such an explanation does not work, for two reasons. First, and most importantly, pop artists are artists. Second, all art has a commercial dimension. Any artist who makes concessions, either for the sake of sales or to appease critics ceases to be an artist.
The problem runs deeper than any particular artist’s reactions to criticism. When critics seize upon a word like “spaz” and argue that it should be removed because it is offensive, they completely misunderstand the language of art. The language of art is not literal: a word, an image, a sound are not chosen by an artist to covey a literal meaning; they are chosen because they help solve a problem specific to the art work. Hence the words do not convey the same force of commentary on the real as they would if they were used in everyday speech. A racist character is a novel is not a racist, because they are not real people but characters whose ‘life’ serves a literary function. The literary function is neither to celebrate nor condemn racism: any work of art which is that literal fails as art. The literary function of characters, as with the elements of any form of art, is to contribute to the realization of the work as a whole. They are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ not according to whether they express ‘good’ or ‘bad’ character traits, but according to whether they contribute to the successful realization of an aesthetic whole. This distinction, upon which the existence of art depends, is continually ignored by the chorus of the perpetually offended. Any artist who withdraws or revises a work simply because a group of the public is incapable of distinguishing the referents of artistic and ordinary language ceases to function as an artist. If “spaz” was the right word then it was the right word and Beyonce should have stuck by her decision. If it was not the right word then the song should not have been released until the right word was found.
The stakes are higher than the lyrics of pop songs. Documenta 15 was disrupted by a complaint a large work by the Indonesian art collective Taring Padi contained caricatured portrayals of Jewish people and was antisemitic. The piece in no way advocated violence towards Jewish people or any other group. The collective apologized and explained that the work was meant to criticize the violence of the Suharto regime. The content deemed antisemitic resulted from their exploration of the connections between Suharto and Mossad. The Artistic Directors– another Indonesian art collective, ruangrupa– agreed to first cover the mural and then remove it. Documenta is no pop song but one of the most important international art festivals. That the organizers gave in to pressure and that the artists themselves felt compelled to apologize is sad but not shocking testimony to the failure to understand the dangers of censorship.
A with the racist character, the artistic use of caricature has to be judged in the context of its contribution to the art work as a whole. Jewish comedy abounds in caricatures of Jewish characters, but these are not normally denounced as antisemitic. They are not antisemitic not because they are typically written by Jewish comics, but because they are not commentaries on Jewish people but characters written for humorous effect. They same reasoning must be applied in the Documenta case. The goal here was not humour but political criticism. One might object that the criticism was rather too obvious and literal, but regardless of how one assesses the work, the only relevant question is: did the figures work coherently within the art work as a whole? If so, they are valid in the context of the piece, and the organizers of the show should have defended it.
The validity or otherwise of art works does not mean that they are above criticism. But criticism is the opposite of censorship. Criticism– at least good criticism– engages with the work, perhaps exposes weaknesses that artists can then push beyond in subsequent efforts. The danger of the Documenta case is not that the removal of this particular work is another successful attempt to link political criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism– although it is that– but that it reveals that aesthetic illiteracy has penetrated the highest echelons of the art world. If they do not understand that censorship does not solve political problems like ableism or anti-Semitism but just kills art, who will stand up for the integrity of art work?
The public has a right to criticize, not to remove or question the right of art works to exist. Another recent controversy involving a new work by one of England’s most important sculptors, Antony Gormley saw students at Imperial College London complaining that they were not “consulted” about the installation of the new work. No wonder, and than god they were not. Some complained that the work was too “phallic,” reading a large square protuberance from the lower middle of the structure as a penis. Gormley contested that reading. That he bothered to engage with this puerile philistinism speaks positively to his character, but the debate is beside the point. One must read the sculpture first of all as a sculpture, as an arrangement of material parts to produce a certain formal coherence which can be interpreted in different ways. No one interpretation– including Gormley’s– is correct. Any art work worth erecting– (no, not in that sense!) in public should generate discussion and debate. The problem with the student objections (aside from its crass, unthinking literalism, thin-skinned over-sensitivity, and platitudinous, prudish moralism) is that they assume that they should carry the day. Their position is thus as dogmatic as it is mindless. Fortunately, the school has refused their request to remove it.
Remember when student’s led the struggle for free speech and the free exercise of the artistic imagination? It is a sad day for campus politics when we have to rely on the administration to defend artistic creation.
But let’s not get too excited about sensible administrators. They can still behave like tyrants. On the same day that the Gormley controversy was being reported the Royal College of Music suspended pianist Alexander Romanovsky. Romanovsky performed with a Russian musician at the theatre in Mariupol that was the site of alleged Russian atrocities. The venue was sure to stir controversy, but art cannot push in the ways I discussed above if it is afraid of controversy. If administrators are afraid of risk, they should move to the City and work for insurance firms rather than run art schools. Since when do school authorities decide where musicians can perform or suspect their motives for performing? If the job of musicians is to play music, we have here a case of someone being suspended for doing his job. Or was it because he had the temerity to perform with a Russian?
When Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem premiered in 1962 to consecrate the new Coventry Cathedral (the original was destroyed in World War Two), he included included a German soloist. The fact that its first performance occurred 16 years after the end of the war is besides the point. There would still have been many veterans and civilian victims in the audience, but Britten understood that music, perhaps more than any art, envelopes listeners in a shared experience that breaks down barriers. Peace requires difficult encounters. If music helps cross divides it has to go to the frontiers to work its magic. Writing to his sister about the Requiem, Britten said that he hoped it would make people “think a bit.” The piece is powerful, but not powerful enough to force people to think.
Underlying each of these attacks on creativity and art work is the naive belief that if everyone were just nice and “inclusive” the problems of the world would go away. Aside from the irony that those who preach inclusivity are typically the first to loudly demand the exclusion of anything that they do not understand or enjoy, the belief is based on a profound misunderstanding of social change. Slogans and platitudes do not change the world. Nor does art, for that matter. Art changes sensibilities, hopefully in the direction of deepening desires for as yet unexperienced forms. As senses and mind open towards the new and difficult, then might emerge the formation of people who demand a better world, one devoted to free expression, interaction, peace, and creative expression.