At Philly Mag: These DNC-Week Art-and-Politics Events Make a Real Statement

Never mind the painted donkeys. Art is supposed to do more than just mark that the Democrats are in town.

Let’s be honest, those painted donkeys parked around the city in advance of the Democratic Convention are colorful but make no statement, no demand.

Well, that is they didn’t, until anti-fracking activists added fake droppings to them to protest the silence on fracking in Democratic Party’s platform.

Those “statements” and “demands” were quickly cleaned up (no party poopers here!) and the donkeys were restored to their emblematic “glory.”

Sigh.

As the daughter of a sculptor who participated in the Sao Paulo Art Biennial twice, and won the Grande Prêmio Latino-Americano Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho (the top honor for Latin American artists) in 1975, color me unimpressed. 

Art is supposed to do more than just mark that the Democrats are in town. 

I inherited a funky pin from my mother that says “Arte Salva Vidas” — “Art Saves Lives.” An artist who created work in Guatemala during the terrible 36+ year undeclared civil war there, my mother understood that statement in her very bones.

And though my art and circumstance are quite different than hers, I understand it too.

I wear that pin, from time to time, to remind myself that the real power of any (all) of the arts isn’t represented by marketing ploys or branding campaigns, but resides in art’s ability to transform lives, ways of thinking and seeing, and society itself.

Art prompts participation, demands engagement, razes barriers and the walls between us.

I’m happy to note that a number of organizations and artists in our city have scheduled events during the week of the Democratic Convention that — in diverse, unique and very real ways — highlight the formidable transformative power of the arts.

Read the rest of the column and take a look at SOAPBOX for Cultural Equity, Truth to Power  and Juntos’ portable mural and march events by clicking here.