BY KAREN BOSSICK
From Woody Guthrie’s protest songs to Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica,” art has long been a medium through which artists can make a statement about society’s failings.
Kristin Poole, artistic director at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, will address “Artists as Agitators and Changemakers” at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, at The Center in Ketchum.
The lecture kicks off The Center’s new BIG IDEA project, “We the People: Protest and Patriotism,” which will officially open with a reception at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 28.
Poole says that some artists have positioned themselves as agents of societal change, challenging social boundaries, exposing injustice and pushing for change, since the onset of modernism. To wit:
- Dada artists’ art, poetry and performance produced in reaction to the horrors and folly of World War I
- Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s documentation of China’s political oppression, human rights violations and government corruption
- German artist Hans Haacke’s critiques of art censorship and a corrupt and corrupted art world
- Banksy, an anonymous English street artist who has left his satirical street art on streets, walls and bridges of cities throughout the world.
“Artists have been pushing against the status quo for generations,” said Poole. “This lecture will look at some of history’s most successful provocateurs and the arts’ crucial role as a lens through which we see ourselves and the society we are part of.”
Tickets for the lecture are $10 for members of The Center and $12 for nonmembers, available at www.sunvalleycenter.org or by calling 208-726-9491.