Politics

At the end of February of this year, five visual artists (some of them from the Netherlands) withdrew from the Sydney Biennale in protest against the main sponsorship of the Australian company Transfield, which, through a subsidiary, manages Australia's detention centers for asylum seekers. Australia's asylum-seeker policy is highly controversial and, according to the United Nations, in violation of international law. The artists' protest ultimately led to the termination of the contract with Transfield - after 40 years of sponsorship. Art and politics - there is more.

Olivier Py, director of the world-famous theater festival in Avignon announced last month that he would leave Avignon with festival and all if the Front National won the municipal elections. The Netherlands recently concluded a cultural treaty with China. The country with the most executions in the world, but whose opportunities it offers for artists and other creatives we are eager to exploit.

And at Manifesta10 -in St. Petersburg, in Putin's Russia- politics cannot be ignored either. The Dutch visual artists invited to Manifesta10 had a hard time making their decision whether or not to participate.

What are you doing right? Staying away? Or participate and use your presence to make your voice heard? There is no general answer to this question. Conditions in St. Petersburg are not those of Sydney, nor those of China, and starting points, goals and motivations vary from artist to artist.

Where would an artist do well? What can an artist achieve in countries like Russia, China, Australia? These are just some of the questions that arise in this context. Thinking about this means, at the very least, thinking about the role of visual art and visual artists. Is one possible role to "shake up" the world, to hold up a mirror and show us, in every conceivable way, what the world could have looked like? And, perhaps, to point out our responsibilities for that world and the people - all people - who inhabit it?

If so, art initiates a political conversation and, even in places where politics cannot be openly discussed and open resistance is not possible, art can create the possibility for dialogue. Moreover, it can encourage critical thinking everywhere.

Perhaps that is precisely why the legitimization of art is under fire in the Netherlands and abroad. The less art - and you could say the same for science - the stronger the dissenting voices grow silent. In that light, the developments in local politics and the European elections on May 22 are exciting.

In any case, the organization of the Nuclear Security Summit will not be to blame: they set a good, and obligatory, example and proudly displayed our classics. Unfortunately, the political context did not matter much in this regard.