Art + social change part 2, or what makes art accessible?

The National
Museum of Women in the Arts hosted a Twitter chat a few days after artist
Carrie Mae Weems spoke at the museum about whether an artist can inspire social change. Weems’ work has delved into
social issues over the past 30 years. She recently spearheaded an anti-violence public art campaign in
Syracuse and, two years ago, won a MacArthur genius grant, which “supports creative people and effective institutions
committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world.” Weems inspired
the audience to think of ways they too could take art-based actions that would
result in social change.

I watched Weems’
talk from Berlin where I’d spent the previous week with a group of American women
studying the ways in which the German government has addressed social issues
like paid parental leave and the gender disparity in business leadership roles
with legislation. We met with a member of the Bundestag, the Secretary General
of the Social Democratic Party, and the U.S. ambassador to Germany among many
other notables. I have been pondering how to apply these lessons learned to gender disparity in the art world and what role art can play in the larger conversation
about gender disparity in America and other pressing social issues that are being hotly debated right now.

Many of us who were inspired by Weems conversed on Twitter about art’s role in catalyzing social change. Toward the end
of the lively Twitter chat, I said: “Maybe we need the art to be more
accessible. It’s part of the reason why I like @streetart — uncomplicated,
accessible #FreshTalk4Change”

A tweeter asked,
“More accessible to whom?” I hesitated at engaging with him. Twitter
conversations can turn ugly fast because it’s difficult to discern tone in 140
characters. However, the act of posing the question without giving any context felt a little aggressive
for a conversation between people searching for ways to make a positive change in our communities and who were looking for connections and collaborations with one another. Plus, the answer to his question seemed obvious: everyone!

I tweeted back:
“If trying to catalyze social change, the art doing so should be accessible to
everyone #FreshTalk4Change”

The dissenter
said: “I’n [sic] not trying to be a jerk, but who gets to define ‘accessible’?”
Frequently, when someone starts a sentence with “not trying to be a jerk, but…”
that sentence is typically followed by something jerky, but I didn’t want to
assume meaning in his question without first asking for clarification.

I tweeted:
“Can you explain what your disagreement is with accessibility of art? I have
blind spot on this point.”

He replied:
“Really just the definition of ‘accessibility’. I honestly just don’t know what
you mean.”

When someone says,
“I honestly just don’t know what you mean,” he usually has some idea of what
you mean and he usually has an opinion that differs from yours, but for some passive/aggressive reason, he’s not willing to share his opinion. I can be a little naïve sometimes, though.
Perhaps what seemed obvious to me was not obvious to this person. His confusion
got me thinking about how to articulate in more than 140 character Twitter chunks what
I mean when I say that social change art should be accessible.

Art that is
being made to spark social change should not require an explanation of its
meaning. It should not contain oblique historical and cultural
references that require an artist talk or in depth knowledge of art history to
understand. The message of social change art should be intellectually and
emotionally apparent to as many people as possible because social change
doesn’t happen when only an elite few are included in the conversation. Making
social change art accessible doesn’t mean dumbing it down. Social change art
that is smart is powerful and effective.

Art that is
about social change ought to be widely available in the public sphere so it can
be seen by large numbers of people rather than only a self-selecting few who
choose to experience art inside galleries and museums, where most of it is
hidden away in storage anyway and where the mission is not usually social change.

Instead of bringing people to the art, social
change art should be brought to the people. Posters made by the Guerilla Girls
to expose gender and economic disparity in the arts and the anti-violence posters by Weems
have been wheatpasted on walls all over the country, posted on billboards, and beamed out through
social media where thousands, maybe millions, of people have seen them in
their every day lives. The messages are clear and impactful.

I mentioned street
art in the earlier tweet because it often tends toward activism or promoting social change. Street art has uncomplicated meaning and lacks physical or social barriers to experiencing it. Accessible.

I’d travelled to Paris after
Berlin three days after the attacks and I looked for messages scrawled on the
walls and streets about the violence that had just occurred. I saw fresh pieces
that were straightforward and visible at eye level to anyone who was paying
attention. Même
pas peur. Je suis Paris. Liberté. Powerful,
accessible messages for the masses.

(I’m not done
thinking about the accessibility of art!)