Works of Political and Moral Motivation

Works of Political and Moral Motivation - Michael Bracewell

From the book: Richard Hamilton - Modern Moral Matters - The Serpentine Gallery

‘ 'Political or moral motivation is hard to handle for an artist'. But the profound emotion that the originating events have caused him, in terms of their injustice, cruelty or moral blindness, has provided occasions of extraordinarily heightened inspiration.’

• This quote suggests that artists struggle to deal with topics that have not affected them directly, this makes art a very personal and emotive thing. I suppose by tackling the ‘originating events’ then he may be seen as indirectly having a political or moral motivation. The most important thing I can glean from this quote is that it is hard for an artist to connect to something that they have not experienced or encountered. 

‘...we might ask how Hamilton’s art relates to the emotional volatility and keen edge of protest.’

• Again, this relates to the idea of emotional connection to a topic being the key to a piece of art serving its purpose. 

‘engagement with the moral consciousness of an era’

• This is  a good collection of words to summarise how artist connect with their audience through social responsibility. People cares and priorities change as over time so I suppose it is necessary to stay ‘on trend’ with what you care about. This might link to the idea of social responsibility being a gimmick because it suggests that you are tapping into what your audience believe to be important at the moment, but whether this matches with your own opinions is a different matter. 

‘the conversion of mass-mediated imagery into an art form that both appropriates and restates the energy, glamour and visceral immediacy of pop-cultural media.’

• It is possible to change the meaning of things. Whether this is through the physical deconstruction and reformation of imagery or purely through perception and interpretation. I like the idea of restating energy so that it fights back at its original purpose. I have not thought very much about how to visually investigate this topic but this may be a good starting point, although changing the subject matter from pop-culture to something more relevant to my topic.