Disciplining the Avant-Garde: Art in America

This article written by Gregory Sholette communicates the climate of resistance shown to artists and others in America in the aftermath of September 11. Sholette touches on the involvement of government powers in artistic practices that relate to protest situations, particularly that of the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) and the fallout from such activities.

He shows that in most situations, artists involved in protest work are given unfair treatment and are shown a ‘no tolerance’ attitude by groups such as the FBI to situations where they are merely communicating their views on social issues that they disagree with.

Today, three years on from the publication of this article, I have personally noticed a change in these attitudes, and that change seems to correlate to the upcoming American election and the popular interest given to such artists and their work with protest action over the past few years. Although I have not experienced first hand the social climate of America since 9/11, it seems from my outside perspective that the United States population has become fed up with the totalitarian stance of the current government administration and their actions since coming into power. As Sholette highlights, it seems that the terrorist attacks have forced America to become a culture of fear and anyone noticed doing something mildly outside the norm is brutally and unfairly prosecuted: ‘the US government is aggressively seeking to portray a group of contemporary artists known for their politically provocative, yet legal and Constitutionally protected art, as a full-blown terrorist threat to national security.’

This seems to have changed because such treatment to protestors has been more widely publicised and with individuals such as Michael Moore showing the dishonesty of political powers, as a result these activists have been given almost hero status.

Culture Jamming and protest art such as that of the CAE has become more mainstream and idolised as people start to not tolerate the ‘political and cultural repression’ seen since the war against terrorism has come into fruition. A recent review of ‘The Yes Men’ documentary shows that the sentiments of protest artistic groups are being much more highly regarded as essential to not letting the Bush administration’s tactics become the norm: ‘Urging humanity to wake up before corporations make this impossible, The Yes Men are the most vital force in gurellia performance since Abbie Hoffman. TechnoSituationists with an agenda, these are artists whose antics truly threaten the consensual hallucination.’

Douglas Rushkoff, author of Media Virus, Nothing Sacred. Retrieved from http://www.theyesmen.org/en/book.




Sholette, Gregory. “Disciplining the Avant-Garde: the United States versus The Critical Art Ensemble”. CIRCA: Contemporary Visual Culture in Ireland 112, Summer 2005. 50-59.