art

Jason Deitch, a UC-Berkeley PhD in sociology, has long been fascinated with the cultural effects of war. A veteran, Deitch has served as an advisor and activist in many capacities, but his newest project, produced in his capacity as an advisor to the California State Library, is gaining national recognition. Along with Chris Brown of the Contra Costa County Library system, the StoryCorps Military Voices Initiative, filmmaker Rebecca Murga, and photographer Johann Wolf, Deitch set out to interview as many of California’s estimated two million veterans as he could.

Well, at least the ones with tattoos. As Deitch told PBS’s NewsHour:

These tattoos are an expression from a community that doesn’t openly discuss or express emotion…. We understood these tattoos to be uniquely valuable, as veterans largely return home to a community that doesn’t know their story and how war changed them… That can be an incredibly isolating experience…

He went on to say that it was tough recruiting vets willing to show off their ink and talk about their experiences on the frontlines, but he hoped the resulting exhibit, “War Ink,” would help “bring veterans out of isolation by helping people back home understand them.”

Participants described the process of being photographed and recounting their stories as a way to educate others about a struggle that doesn’t end with their tour of duty.

In Britain, it’s usually Banksy who’s associated with free-wheeling art in the streets. But now, sociologist and performer Tom Shakespeare is taking what might be an even more radical stance—not only should street art be outside the walls of the museum, museum art should go free, too.

“Couldn’t a gallery be more like a library and less like a temple?” Shakespeare asks in his Point of View piece for the BBC News Magazine. His idea is that a society is enriched by its art, and so, by locking up the great works of the world, we’re preventing the flourishing of society-level happiness. Hang a Monet in your house for a couple of weeks, and your whole worldview might change.

Maybe my modest proposal to break open the museum vaults will appear as fanciful as my support for the much-maligned Arts Council. In which case, let me finish by mentioning another way of democratising the visual arts – an experiment that is happening here and now and in the UK, no less.

Last week, the long list for Art Everywhere was published. This project, subtitled “A very, very big art show”, seeks to use hundreds of donated billboard sites to bring 50 of the best-loved works of British art into the public space for two weeks.

I think that Art Everywhere is an inspired idea. We are being asked to donate three pounds, and to choose which pictures from the long list will get this unprecedented exposure.

Just imagine: for two weeks, large scale artworks, in our streets. Not selling, not scaring, not “sloganising”, not titillating – just existing. Intervening silently in our lives with beauty and wonder and mystery.

More please.

For art lovers as well as scholars of utopias and happiness, this modest proposal might be a fantastic conversation starter—and we know that’s good for society.