Creating Despite Everything: Artistic Production as a Critical Driver

Abstract

In the face of a present characterized by permanent crises, a hopelessness that is difficult to combat and a rampant individualism, art can function as a tool to activate the critical gaze and build possible alternatives. The article explores the capacity of art to activate symbolically and emotionally, to restore communities and to promote social change. Starting from the 60s, it shows how the connection between art and politics intensified and explores specific problems on which work has been done, such as the climate emergency with the Basurama collective, with an activity focused on the criticism of overconsumption, and Agnes Denes, an artist who has worked directly on the natural environment restoring spaces. On the other hand, feminist proposals are explored with Regina José Galindo, who uses her body in performances as a tool to denounce the violence exerted on women, or Guerrilla Girls, who using advertising tactics and graphics have questioned how patterns of inequality also permeate cultural institutions. They are practices that challenge the viewer and that also vindicate art as a space of resistance, repair and the generation of new possibilities and ways of life that are more sustainable and egalitarian.