Saturday, August 8, 2009

Art, Protest and the Press

In an essay arguing that "artists have a duty to dissent," a self-described "marketing strategist" makes the following point:
" ... the art community, as a counterpart of the press, has been given special rights written into the Bill of Rights, known broadly as freedom of the press ..."

Really? So Picasso was a kind of Heidi Collins? Rene Magritte was the Wolf Blitzer of Belgium?

It's not that I don't think artists have a right, or even a duty, to protest ... but surely their freedom to dissent doesn't derive from defining art as some sort of appendage to journalism.

Does it?

No comments: