Revolution and Art

Abstract

Revolution is the quintessential expression of notions of the possible. Behind a rhetoric of limitless possibilities, revolutionaries overthrow a status quo that seemed to others at the time an impossibility. In a period of intense transformation, lawlessness and the immediate euphoric aftermath, the possible seems unbounded. Once in power the revolutionaries often unwillingly accept the need for compromise with the possible. Revolution is thus where, in Rancière’s terms, ‘the part with no part’ trumps politics as police, and post-revolution where the singular order and the universal find an uneasy compromise. Political analyses of revolutions have only rarely factored in artists and the role of art, as both practice and idea, in these stages. Some important exceptions include ‘image theatre’ as a system of decolonization; grafitti and murals with political and social themes covering the concrete spaces of Cairo during the Arab Spring; freedom of expression, and, communist East European artists in how they applied the lessons of failed revolution. This panel explores the multiple ways in which art and revolution intertwine, both by artists and academics. To what extent can art provide an alternative space for mobilising revolutions? To what extent do new revolutionary leaders then use art to justify their newly-won power? What is art in this liminal politics?

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