The Corporatization of Art

Every political regime is devoted to the promotion of its own agenda. With the demise of capitalism and the rise of corporatism, art has become a commodity to be manipulated and disseminated in support of the conservative regime's agenda. Corporations are typically conservative and the conservative agenda is the globalization of capital and support for short-term profits at the expense of human and environmental concerns. Corporations are using their control of media to nurture and produce art that promotes their status quo and a reactionary worldview typified by the New York Times’ foreign-affairs columnist, Thomas Friedman, who says "Give war a chance."

Paul Robeson was an African-American social activist, Phi Beta Kappa scholar, recording and performing artist, and professional athlete, who in 1943 was awarded the Abraham Lincoln Medal for distinguished service in human relations while the FBI was simultaneously labeling him a leading Communist and issuing custodial detention orders for his immediate arrest in a national emergency. Mr. Robeson said "All art is political. The decision not to be political is a political decision." Art has always been the last refuge of political dissent. Art movements have historically originated among groups of artists whose work is devoted to new and revolutionary concepts that subvert institutional norms and standards. As Darryl Van Rhev states on http://www.burningman.com "It is the duty of the artist, as a member of a renegade class situated at the fringe of society, to challenge these philistine standards, thereby reclaiming the practice of art as a spiritual enterprise." However art as political commentary and spiritual enterprise has been subsumed in the past decade by a wave of mega-media mergers that has produced a complex web of business relationships that now define all media and popular art. These mergers how afford the seven media giants (Robert Murdock's News Corporation, Viacom, Walt Disney, AOL Time Warner, Sony, Vivendi Universal, and Bertelsmann) the opportunity to ruthlessly commodify art in support of their conservative political agenda. While Eminem may shock and affront contemporary society, these gestures are merely artifacts of the corporate marketing process. The conservative corporate hand is apparent everywhere in a system that links education, creation, production, distribution, and marketing. There is no spontaneity, vitality, or political commentary in art, and vis-a-vis the mass media and popular culture of today.

Politization of art describes the growing significance of art in shaping the politics of our society. Corporations know the impact of art on our culture and that's why every corporation has a catchy jingle. As corporations commodify and ultimately culturalize art and artistic expression they're able to direct and shape public opinion to the values and mores that they want the public to hold. Evidence of this fact is how far art has degenerated from John Lennon's "Imagine" to Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A." which has the double-dip of chauvinistic patriotism, and the blurring of the line between church and state in our supposedly secular society. What corporation today would even let John Lennon record "Give Peace A Chance", let alone market and distribute that song through their retail outlets? Corporations are replacing the democracy of art with plutocracies of money, they're replacing self-organizing artistic markets with centrally planned corporate artistry, and they're replacing diverse artistic and cultural expression with their own culture of greed and materialism.

In our culture where we're swamped with reality TV, remakes, sequels, sex, violence, and jingoism - political comment or even political awareness in art is a vestige of a bygone era. Steven Winn, the SF Chronicle art critic, poses the question "Whatever happened to blazing originality? Where is the art and who are the artists to shine the light forward in a deeply unsettling time of global malaise?" The art and artists have gone the way of the corporatization. We won't be seeing any artistic originality, unique or transforming visions, or art that's politically sensitive and re-imagines life because corporations don't want anyone offering new ways of understanding our world or ourselves.

@Copyright 2003 Howard Fallon