Author: Tomás Barceló
Not all links between art and politics are undesirable. Art can contain political content, and a creator may use their work to propose a vision of the world, denounce injustices, or suggest alternatives. Artists are moved by very different impulses: the aesthetic, when we seek to illuminate beauty; the social, when we point out pain or imbalance; the religious, when we attempt to express faith or a transcendent vision; and also the political, when we wish to propose a certain organization of society.
Other artists may use the public relevance they have achieved—through works with no political content—to speak about social matters. In other words, they may have built their prestige speaking about beauty, human drama, or anything else, and later use that visibility to express their political ideas. All of this is legitimate as long as it is sincere.
But in recent years the gap between artists and society has widened: we increasingly dialogue less with concrete people and more with abstract structures. The public is beginning to feel less addressed, and we have stopped trying to understand it. Popular art has weakened, almost to the point of disappearing, and many creators have stopped looking to the sides and have begun looking upward. The temptation to seek shelter exclusively within institutions grows. The dialogue is no longer with living and diverse society, but with the power that administers it and its representatives.
Throughout history there have always been “the king’s painters”: artists who worked for the court or for the ruler of the day. Some were extraordinary, producing works that far surpassed the political context that supported them; others, by contrast, were merely executors of commissions without real artistic stature—mediocre or directly dreadful. Likewise, there have been cultured kings, with a genuine passion for art and a sincere desire to enrich their subjects culturally, and others who saw artists only as effective tools for the most vulgar propaganda. None of this is new.
What is new is the collective aspiration to occupy the position of “the king’s painter.” It is true that the growth of institutional structures has multiplied calls, grants, and cultural programs. Today there are more spaces for “the king’s painters” than in the past, but even so, we cannot all fit there. We cannot all be the king’s painters. Nor would that be desirable.
Even if there were abundant resources, power only needs those who possess real influence. And if the artistic community becomes socially irrelevant—if it no longer dialogues with people nor participates in their everyday imagination—it loses that instrumental value. Even the strategy of aligning with institutions does not guarantee stability, because what made that alliance valuable in the first place is being eroded: the capacity to reach society.
At a time of widespread political discredit, tying cultural survival exclusively to institutional power feeds the caricature of the artist as dependent or parasitic. It may be unfair, but a growing part of society is beginning to perceive us as a group close to power, living off taxes and speaking in a language of our own that says nothing truly interesting. Reinforcing that image is giving arguments to our worst caricature. And from that caricature it is impossible to rebuild dialogue.
The principal challenge of contemporary art is not only economic. It is disconnection. Every subsidy that does not demand a genuine dialogue with the public may relieve an immediate urgency, but it worsens the fundamental problem. It is bread for today and hunger for tomorrow, a we say in Spain. This does not mean rejecting every relationship with institutions. There will be legitimate, necessary, and valuable projects. But to pretend that all of us can live as official artists is a dangerous illusion—and a false one.
If we do not recover a popular art in the best sense of the term (direct, close, capable of speaking with the concrete people who surround us) the entire structure will eventually empty itself out. If that foundation disappears, if the living bond breaks completely, not even the cultural court that today seems to sustain everything will remain. In the long run, even the king’s painters will disappear.
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