Calls for the simplification of abstract or allusive art have always come from governments suspicious of artists themselves. This is why totalitarian regimes have always legislated some form of realism.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Any form of art is political if you make it that way.
It's too simplistic to advance the notion of the autonomy of art as a reason for turning away from the public. You can have autonomy and simultaneously have connections with the social and political world.
Government shouldn't try to dictate what art looks like or what it portrays. Last thing we want is government screwing it up, which is what they would do.
Painting is the representation of visible forms. The essence of realism is its negation of the ideal.
Masterpieces of art possess immense potential to advance a worldview that could help assuage the societal terrors posed by globalization, the most thoroughgoing socioeconomic upheaval since the Industrial Revolution, which has set off a pandemic of retrogressive nationalism, regional separatism, and religious extremism.
Governments have always been wary of the arts because they're wayward and ambiguous and because they deal with feelings rather than facts.
I believe that true art is universal in its appeal.
Magical realism allows an artist like myself to inject layers of meaning without being obvious. In American culture, where there is freedom of expression, this approach may seem forced, unnecessary and misunderstood. But this system of communication has become very Iranian.
To me art is a form of manifest revolt, total and complete.
Art is either plagiarism or revolution.