The Unexpected Relationship Between War And Art.

Picture this: You’re scrolling through your curated feed on your social media of choice. Posts pop up as you thumb through them: Advertisement about losing weight quickly. Videos of disproportionate human suffering. Post from that one friend who just got married and can’t stop talking about it. A woman — talking about how her child is starving. Advertisement about sleeping less but being more effective. Children in body bags. Advertisement. Human suffering. So on and so forth.

At some point, it becomes a slog that we become desensitized to. The pain of others is minimized just so that we can manage to continue our daily life, slaving away at the machine that crunches us underfoot. 

We cope in different ways: Art is one. Some create art to cope, others consume it. Art has existed as a political tool since its birth, and war is only a rallying point for many artists to gather around to express their opinions. The efficacy of this, though, is widely debated. There’s a famous quote about the Vietnam War from Kurt Vonengut where he said that all the artists at the time had focused on the war like “a laser beam,” but had all the effectiveness of “a custard pie dropped from a six-foot high stepladder.” Indeed, art can serve as a starting point for discussion when it comes to war, but to take it further than that, it has to stimulate real action.

Art has risen in the face of war before, with movements like the Surrealist and Dada movements. These movements sparked real and interesting discussion about what was considered conventional in the art world. The Dadaist movement started as opposition to war and to deconstruct what was believed to be foundational in art. The Surrealist movement took the Dada movement deeper and explored the subconscious mind and dreams. They inspired people to think differently and consider things out of the box. 

While discussion is all well and good, it’s important to look at the real ways war affects the art world. Art Dubai’s 20th edition of their fair is having to downsize their event because of the disturbances in the Middle East. In this uncertain time, many large galleries are backing out or feeling unsteady in participation in a region with such tumultuous political status. Economically speaking, collectors are now motivated to spend their money differently as well, with many being polarized to art that is either entirely wholesome or, conversely, art with extremely strong political ideology that speaks to humanitarian or antiwar roots. As travel becomes more and more restricted, shipping becomes a whole other beast to deal with. War brings with it only problems, and it’s not possible to undo the damage it causes.