concept of reproduction and how it undermines aura. “We talk about the crisis versus the chronic. What These projects weren’t sacred; they were accessible, is an incident, and what is an ongoing condition?” lively, and engaging in their directness. Vapor trails cross a light blue sky. Kwadwo Adae’s portraits hung in the next room of “It seems all states are equally permanent and the gallery, and, according to his artist statement, he elusive: emergency, revolution, attachment, care, had a similar accessibility in mind: “Adae’s painted peace.” tributes align the subjects with honorific portraiture, a genre typically associated with elite classes,” the notes read. “However, here the centralized formats —Eli Mennerick is a senior in and streamlined backgrounds retain a sense of ease Ezra Stiles College and a Senior Editor. and immediate accessibility.” This was democratic art—“the People’s Art,” according to the subtitle of the exhibit. And it brought to mind something Pizarro had told me. It was something, he said, that he hadn’t quite worked out for himself: a half-formed thought. “I don’t know at what point the term ‘art’ became separate from ‘culture,’” he said. “Growing up, my parents had what you would call ‘art’ all around our house, but these were cultural artifacts… whether it was cultural instruments, or certain small sculptures we would have around our house. For me, art isn’t separate from culture. Culture is art.” What would it mean to fully believe that art is no different from culture? It would be a radical revision. Although we refer to “the arts and culture,” we understand them to be fundamentally different. Art is inspiration, innovation, genius. Culture is the organic, unthinking collective. Viewed this way, the very word “art” seems tied up in antidemocratic ideals. So, what role should artists play right now? The same as non-artists, I guess. For some reason, we separate art from culture, from social life. We place it apart from us, then we ask it to justify itself by demanding it does political work. We don’t worry about whether “culture” can bring about political change—the question barely makes sense. Culture is life, sociality, community. It can’t be reduced to political usefulness because it is the basis for politics, the reason for politics. It is political in the sense that all life is political: in a society with deadly intentions, the only way to really live is to fight for change. At the “Revolution on Trial” exhibit, there’s a video piece by the artist Chloë Bass. Slow-motion footage from the 1970 May Day protests on the New Haven Green plays on loop. We see a close-up of Ericka Huggins’ face. A narrator recites, delicately: “Extraordinary moments and movements and things come out of all these normal moments that are really kind of boring.” A banner painted with the words “Power to the people” hangs from a building.
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