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Aesthetic Evangelist - Bri Pattillo

This was such a good article! This article touched on a lot of things we discussed last semester, but really broadened and defined them.

1.    It made me think a lot about J.R. and his work with different groups. Both he and the author share this idea that the process is as important, if not more important, than the product. If you are creating work in an unethical way, does it matter how beneficial the outcome is? As artists we must check ourselves along the way to make sure that all aspects of the process are in-line with our message and goal.
2.    This article definitely opened my eyes to some of my personal preconceptions. I think that I used to view myself in the romantic manner described, the artists who crosses boundaries and goes into dangerous terrain etc. Through art activism class last semester, and this class this semester, I’m seeing how much deeper and wider one must approach the idea of art activism within a community, and the tricky pitfalls one might face that could make the work problematic.
3.    The example of Alfredo Jaar’s exhibit “One or Two Things I Know About Them” and when the author described how he “used his professional authority as an expert in the regulation of symbolic meaning to override collaborator Gayatri Spivak’s objection to his decision” to present the images of the women with crude words interested me in several ways. Just that sentence, “his professional authority as an expert in the regulation of symbolic meaning”, it’s ridiculous, I wrote in the margin “lol, wtf” I then had to take a picture of the page and send it to my best friend Jon who is a photographer. We then had a discussion about the ethics of the photographer in relation to their subject. His personal body of work deals a lot with people all over the world, and we wondered how he might respond if one of the people in his photos ever asked that it not be shown. We also talked about how photos create context, what is within and also about of the frame, and what is in the gallery, creates the context through which the artist wants you to see the work. What is presented will always betray a hidden agenda or the artist’s person views on the subject, even if they think it is being presented in a neutral manner.


1.    One question the article evokes is how can we avoid the trap of the conservative/Victorian vision of community art and the artist’s role within that.
2.    What is a politically coherent community? How can we work to develop more?

3.    What if society places someone within a community but they don’t self-identify as being a part of? Can we still say that they are part of that community?

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