culture – Culture of Youth

Art For Society 1978: A Reflection

In 1978, Margaret Richards proposed the idea of an art exhibition with works of a social or political purpose. The third of it’s kind at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and only the second survey of contemporary socially committed art since the war, the exhibition aimed to challenge the almost dogmatic opinion that art did not mix well with politics or commitment to social change.

The exhibitions measure of success was stated:

‘If the exhibition is successful it will cause at least three things to come about: that reaction to the exhibition will be so strong as to cause other exhibitions to focus more precisely on aspects of social practice in the arts; that a much stronger body of contemporary and historical research will become available which will recognise that artists have seen their responsibility to society as an integral part of their art, and finally that museums and galleries, arts funding bodies and others not only recognise the contribution being made by artists in this way, but will support them and their work.’
Martin Rewcastle and Nicholas Serota

Over 40 years later, the subject of politics is commonly presented in post-modernist art and often forms the basis of artistic discussion. Societal issues such as gender, the environment, fascism and racial issues are just some of the topics captured by art in the 21st century. Because of this change to the focus of art in recent decades, looking at this exhibition documenting the combination of society and art historically, allows us to see how both society and art have developed since. This is a review of the galleries predictions from the perspective of the UK art world 40 years later.

Exhibitions Which have Focused on Society Since 1978

2 years after the exhibition, began a decade significantly and unpredictably marked by sociopolitical occurrences – Thatcher’s Britain, the Berlin Wall, the miners strike, HIV, gay liberation and the Falklands War to name a few. With these occurrences came cultural impact, which also meant an artistic resurgence that focused more on political topics.

The Tate Liverpool’s 2014 exhibition ‘Keywords: Art, Culture and Society in 1980’s Britain’ is a prime example of this resurgence, as it is a curation of 1980’s society-focused art, conforming to a theory of cultural change: ‘Vocabulary of Society and Culture’ by Raymond Williams. Other 1980’s exhibitions that reflected these political topics, or ‘aspects of social practice’ as suggested by Serota and Rewcastle include ‘Issue: Social Strategies By Women Artists’ of 1980 and the touring American ‘Tim Rollins + K.O.S’ which was exhibited in the UK for 4 months.

Through the following 3 decades politically-centred exhibitions became more popular and common. The 1997 YBA-created, Saatchi-owned exhibition ‘Sensations’ was proof of the possible success of controversial art, as the Royal Academy recorded 3,000 visitors daily during the duration of it’s residency. This public excitement encouraged more and more exhibits of controversial art – whether the disputes were over sociopolitical messages or simply the profound appearance of such works.

Nowadays there are a plethora of exhibitions solely focusing on activist art and socio-focal themes. In fact, when asked about post-modern art, 60% said they, above all, considered the purpose to be a socio-political message. To relate to the predictions of Art For Society, whether caused by the gallery or just in junction with it, more and more UK exhibitions have focused on social and political practice since 1978 with success and popularity.

The Recognition of Artists Who’s Practice is Informed by Social Issues

Increasingly, UK artists have used their talents to portray their social and political beliefs and moral stance, and have received celebration and recognition for their integrity and creativity. Below is a list of UK socio-focal artists that have been acknowledged since the Art for Society exhibition in 1978.

Helen Chadwick was a British sculptor, active from the 1970s to her untimely death in 1996. The subject of Chadwick’s work was mostly corporeal, profoundly and unconventionally commenting on patriarchy and the values of feminism. In 1987, she became one of the first women to be nominated for a Turner Prize, rightful validation of her recognition as a forerunner for a new neo-conceptualism – more shocking and unorthodox and statement-making art than works before that were later to be associated with the Young British Artists movement, a movement coaxed by Chadwick and like-minded creatives of the UK.

Yinka Shonibare CBE, RA is a British Nigerian multimedia artist, known for his commentary on colonialism, post-colonialism and cultural identity. Shonibare typically remarks the economic and political relationship between Africa and Europe and such works are internationally known. Yinka was a Turner Prize nominee in 2004 and has since been awarded MBE and CBE decoration proving the national recognition of his talent and works. In 2013, Shonibare was elected a Royal Academician, which also shows his sociopolitical work is recognised, accepted and a part of an Artistic Institute.

Tracey Emin CBE, RA has been deemed the ‘bad girl of British art’ due to her unconventional behaviour and controversial works. A pioneer of the YBA movement, Emin’s sculptures, installations, paintings and videos are thought-provoking and often sensuous, typically reflecting her opinions and ideals, some of which were bred of her personal experiences with rape, abortion, sexism and substance abuse. Tracey Emin has achieved CBE decoration and Royal Academician status, showing institutional acknowledgement of her work. She also represented Great Britain in the 52nd Venice Biennale – a well known international art festival.

Banksy is an anonymous graffiti artist and political activist, internationally known for his cynically comedic works that comment on capitalism, politics and humanity in the canvas of the public streets. Banksy’s documentary, ‘Exit Through The Gift Shop’ was nominated for an Academy Award and a BAFTA. Due to the unannounced nature of his pieces, when found they receive international televised attention.

Support For Artists And Their Work Through Public Institutions

Rewcastle and Serota’s proclamation stated that museums, art funding bodies and other public institutions wouldn’t just recognise sociopolitical artists but would also support them, if the Art For Society exhibition was successful. The following are examples of institutes that provided such support.

The Turner Prize is a British art prize established in 1984 (6 years after the exhibition) that is aimed to encourage a wider interest in contemporary art. Several winners in the past have submitted sociopolitical centred art, such as Grayson Perry, Gillian Wearing CBE and Jeremy Deller. The support the award provides for the artist is public recognition and financial gain, as the award is £25,000 and the ceremony attracts publicity and televised attention. The chairman of the Turner Prize jury until 2007 was Nicholas Serota himself, who wrote the preface of Art For Society and created the measures of success this article is about. Seeing as Serota was the chairman from the establishing year of the award, the Turner Prize could be seen as a direct association influenced by the exhibition, as it is a body of recognition and support for artists, including those that employ social and political messages.

Royal Academy – Among the UK’s public institutes of art, the Royal Academy of Arts is an example that recognises and supports sociopolitical artists. Currently their list of Royal Academicians include the previously mentioned Yinka Shonibare, Gillian Wearing, Grayson Perry and Tracey Emin, all of which influence the vision and future of RA. The RA have had a history with controversial art: it was, of course, the venue of the Sensations exhibition of 1997 – quite a gamble for an establishment so favoured and well known.

Goldsmiths, University of London – For over half a century, Goldsmiths University has had a reputation in the fields of humanities and the creative arts, but in 1988, an art movement was formed from a new generation of Goldsmiths students, nurtured by the institute – the Young British Artists. As previously mentioned, this era of British art was born out of controversy, sociopolitical and comedic messages, and atypical material use. The school played an essential role in the movements development – Michael Craig Martin and Ian Jeffrey* were just two of the tutors that were integral to the YBA’s first exhibition ‘Freeze’. Since that period, Goldsmiths has continued to pride itself on it’s notable alumni and still provides support and encouragement for controversial creative art.

*Ian Jeffrey wrote an essay for the Art For Society exhibition, on photography and disclosure, showing his recognition of sociopolitical art and photography – this could have been an influence on the YBA.

To summarise this long and winding article, in 1978, the Educational Officer and the Director of Whitechapel Art Gallery created a declaration of aims for an exhibition of social and political purpose. Whether it was a contribution or an attribution, the decades following the show were filled with an increasing amount of acceptability of sociopolitical focused art and support for their creators. In the current climate, sociopolitical messages are almost expected of post-modern art, as the subjects of politics and art have become more interlaced in cultural conversation.

Vogue: The Value of Dance in a Minority Culture

Vogue may have been a single by Madonna, released in 1990, but the track has a large back history worth more than the platinum single.

Vogue was a dance style started by LGBTQ African American and Latino American groups of Harlem in the 1970s, as a way to seek refuge from the poverty, crime and prejudice they faced. It was part of a larger subculture called Ball Culture, started in New York the 1920s.

Vogue as a dance style was developed from the magazine ‘Vogue‘; dancers would imitate the poses of models from covers of magazines or catwalks, displaying their desire to be as glamorous and famous as the cover girls. The whole culture derived from a longing for glamour and fame that, at the time, was extremely difficult for these minority groups to achieve – the ball scene allowed them to live their fantasies, which is why the dance was so valuable to this minority culture.

‘Balls to us is as close to reality as we’re gonna get to all that fame and fortune and stardom and spotlight‘
(Paris is Burning, 1990)

The scene became a safe space for the youth of marginalised Harlem to be free and expressive in the sense of their personalities and sexualities, away from the mainstream society that constrained their right to be who they wanted to be.

Identity

One of the things that dance has created in minority cultures is an identity, in the sense of recognition both to themselves and others.

A lot of accounts of people in ballroom culture suggest that in the heteronormative environment of the US in the 1970s and 1980s, some found it difficult to embrace their sexuality in the more heteronormative world. In Paris is Burning (Livingston, J, 1990), the film that documented the ballroom scene of New York in the 80s and 90s, David Xtravaganza told Livingston ‘you feel 100% right being gay’ in relation to vogue balls. This shows that the dance was a way for the community to feel self-assured: seeing people and being with people that likewise didn’t conform to heteronormality could dispel any doubts that the way they lived and who they loved was anything less than okay.

The sense of identity also relates to the way dance has created a doorway for these minority cultures into the mainstream American and European society

In Vogue, a lot of this was through Madonna and her track ‘Vogue‘ released in 1990 on the album ‘I’m Breathless‘. The live performance of ‘vogue‘ on the 1990 MTV awards was a good representation of the people of Ballroom culture; minority cultures were well portrayed and elements of vogue were used in the performance, which was actually choreographed by Jose Gutierez and Luis Camacho – two vogue dancers that were established in the vogue scene. Following her blonde ambition tour, Madonna released a tour video called ‘Truth or Dare’ which documented the star and her crew’s life over the tour. The movie showed the openly gay dancers (5 of the 6 main dancers) in a way that was not often shown to the public, especially in a time of heteronormativity. This movie ended up becoming very influential to the larger LGBT community of the US and Europe.

‘Being gay was to be ‘the other’ and be subversive and perverse and all of a sudden there was this message that you can be gay and happy and successful‘
( Strike a Pose, 2014) – Kevin Stea (one of the dancers) reflecting on the movie’s effect.

Through the song, tour and movie, Madonna created a demand for the dance style and a window into the minority community in the commercial entertainment world; vogue reached Japan and Europe in the 1980s.

This arguably contributed the beginning of the less hetero- and gender normative environment of our western society today. Vogue can now be found throughout Europe Japan and the US, with European vogue houses, lessons open to anyone and an appearance in most social media forms.

‘People in Europe got to know voguing via YouTube; YouTube started in 2005, I returned to Paris in 2006 and by 2007-8 there you were seeing it in European dance competitions.‘
(Rayner, A, 2017) – Laissandra Ninja.

This was so for dancer and choreographer Benjamin Milan, who discovered the ballroom scene and voguing via youtube in 2009, when the european vogue scene was much smaller. Milan then moved to New York for a year to learn the style from ‘the masters of the art form‘.

‘I find great value in voguing as it helped me to connect with myself, my sexual identity and to know that it was ok to be different‘
(Milan, B, 2018)

The style has clearly found a place within commercial dance and entertainment, and so has the minority community along with it, which is not forgotten even now in the 21st century. The identity created is now a way for other people in similar situations and communities to feel the same self-acceptance and confidence, whether directly from ballroom culture and the vogue, or through musicals like ‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie‘ and movies like ‘Saturday Church‘.

There is some debate however around the use of vogue in the commercial world: British choreographer and founder of House of Suarez, Darren Suarez told me about the annoyance of the ‘hierarchy’ of voguers as commercial dancers are taking the voguing jobs after just a few masterclasses.

‘Most dancers want to learn it because it’s very current at the moment. There is no time to envelope yourself in it, to go and become enriched in it‘
(Suarez, D, 2018)

Suarez spoke of the way vogue has evolved but has also become disjointed over time, due to its popularity; its uprise has encouraged the community to grow but has also meant the dance style has been exploited for commercialised dancers and choreographers to gain ‘originality’ without the correct knowledge of the style’s background.

Community

Historically, social dances have been a way to create community, continuing throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The category relates to sociability and socialising, as well as forming a place for people to meet and connect.

With vogue, these dancers of Harlem were not only LGBTQ in a heteronormative America, they were also victims of social exclusion and marginalisation. In the same way that this group had created an identity, they also created a community for themselves in which they could have support and protection.

In Ball culture, the groups that dancers would train with and represent were known as houses, with the leaders of these groups refferred to as fathers and mothers. This metaphor in the context of the struggle these people faced was not a coincidence: for a lot of them, their actual parents had rejected them because of their way of living, and so the men and women who took on caring roles as leaders of their houses, were a way of filling the void. In Paris is Burning (1990), Pepper Labeija explains the extent of rejection these ‘children’ experienced:

‘A lot of these kids that are in the balls, they don’t have two of nothing, some of them don’t even eat’

Many dancers involved in ball culture earned money from escorting and stealing in order to pay for outfits and food, as some admitted in Livingston’s documentary. But still homeless and penniless, these groups provided support and companionship as well as protection from racism and homophobia that was common in New York in the 70s and 80s.

As these dance styles have become more known and common, they still act as a source of community for dancers – communities with the same values, as well as more creative values too.

Benjamin Milan told me ‘Vogue helped me find a community of like minded people where I felt creatively challenged and inspired‘ (2018)

Now, people still use the community of balls and houses as a way to artistically express themselves, to belong to a like minded group and to get away from the constraints of society that have not yet cleared all together. But they also use these competitions and houses as a source of inspiration and creative development, many dancers and choreographers like Milan then interpret the style and present it in their works, therefore spreading the dance styles further and developing them.

Using the LGBTQ community of 1980s Harlem as an example, Dance has become a vessel for culture, community and social escape. Dancing has aided the rise and creation of music genres, fashion and overall culture many times and allows marginalised people to be accepted where they are a minority.

Dance has been used as a support system, providing a sense of belonging and a distraction from social injustice and crisis. It has also supported participants of subculture, by giving a voice and sense of place in society, as mainstream culture slowly embraces their art.

The globalisation of such styles influences commercial art and dance thus intertwining subcultures into the commercial western art scene. Some may believe that the influence of the art of minority cultures on mainstream western society is stealing, as sometimes the art is used, repeated and globalised and the subculture or minority culture is forgotten and those who participated in or created the genre reap little financial gain.

Subculture is however, always evolving and the communities and support mechanisms created for the fringes of society can still find the same values through dance, club culture and developing improvement and regeneration schemes. Dance remains an alternative means of escapism and a way to cope with hardships, as opposed to more harmful, less developing distractions such as crime and drug abuse.

In summary, dance holds value and opportunity for minority cultures that other means of support do not through a sense of identity and community.

If you’re interested in the contents of this article, official clips of the documentaries Strike A Pose, Paris is Burning and Truth Or Dare are available on youtube.