Satwik Gade
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Annihilation of art
2021
Digital
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Birsa
2021
Digital
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Dragon Fly Tablecloth cushions
2021
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Economic personality
2021
Digital
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Jubilee Casuals
2021
Digital
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Phule Home Decor
2021
Digital
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Phule Mug and Hanging
2021
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Rhino cushions
2021
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The anthropocene
2021
Digital
Statement
My idea of art also takes on the role of growing community based and sustainable businesses across the world through the interpretation of community art as radical political activity and community art markets as radical economic activity. I refer to my stated art as Anarchist Art because it is rooted in an anarchism that is natural to human spirit and behaviour. Anarchism should remain free to be defined as any particular community envisions for itself. However, I outline the broad commonalities of anarchist art as my artist’s statement as follows:
The goal of all anarchist art should be to annihilate art itself.
Creativity is intrinsic to all human activity whereas the effect of bourgeois capitalism has been to strip human life of its creative aspects through industrial standardisation, the atomisation of production processes and the professionalisation of art. In an anarchist society the role of the artist would disappear completely as all human activity would become, in itself, artistic.
The best anarchist art is holistic or well rounded rather than brilliant or outlying. It goes beyond aesthetics to explore ideas like “dank” or “wholesome”. Dankness, for instance, focuses not on the external appearance of the artwork but on the underlying content, evaluating it on the basis of community cultural experience rather than on the basis of popular cultural trends.
The myth of human purpose or the idea fulfilment coming from being the best at tasks makes us chase excellence at being a cog within an ineffable machine at the expense of community and relationships. The drive for aesthetics in art comes from purpose defined as a drive towards perfection. But I believe that specialisation is for insects which express instincts, not for people who express abstract emotions and ineffable spirit in other words, their Self.
Historical progress, the idea that human life has improved through history due to civilisational processes, mechanisation and technology is another liberal conceit which ignores the fact that the majority of the people in any civilisation never have access to majority of the civilisational innovations that made life better for people. White european philosophers staked claim to what they called liberal humanism: the spectre of history as progress and the coming of capitalism justified colonialism, slavery and imperialism.
Justice driven and creative redistribution of progress is anarchist art. Human evolution allowed people to formulate their own subjective ontological models, mythologies, which are not irrational but hyper-rational in that they capture truths that are often not within the grasp of rational faculties.
Anarchism restores direct democracy, federalism and consensus building which are hallmarks of pre-civilization societies which are the original affluent societies. Community self-governance obviates the lack of any need for externally imposed authority at all. The way to resist neo-liberal oppression is to act as if we were already free.
Anarchist art is not an ideal to be reached. It already exists under different names all around us. We only need to identify, amplify & emulate.
Community Arts (MFA) Students