The Advocate

When Alex first introduced me to Picasso's Guernica, I was far from impressed. Unfazed by my snobbery,  he told me how the this gargantuan 11x25 antiwar tapestry would have served as the then Secretary of State Colin Powell's backdrop when he appeared before the UN to gain approval for war in Iraq, had it not been covered up. He told me, "That's the power of an image."

Fast forward three weeks, I'm standing in line waiting to meet Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. Her book, Breaking the Sound Barrier, reads, "A blue curtain was drawn across the tapestry so that the image would not be the backdrop for press statements on the coming war. Immediately, posters and banners of Picasso's Guernica began appearing at the antiwar demonstrations sweeping the globe."

Great artists understand the influence of visual imagery and its power to elicit emotion. Some of these artists are aware of faulty societal conventions and choose to confront it. These are the artists that have the power to incite change. We forget how incredibly privileged we are, but also how much we have left to achieve. Social commentators still exist, activists still exist, and they are motivating positive change for those who don't have a voice. When injustice is overlooked, the artist and the advocate must transcend conventional points of views to bring them to light, sometimes at great personal risk.

I spent President's Day weekend in L.A, visiting museums and eating delicious food. The most significant takeaway from this trip was my evolved relationship with art, particularly with that of modern and contemporary works.

The moment I began contextualizing the works I saw, I began to connect with the art I'd previously written off as arbitrary. Any work can be trivialized to its fundamental components, but when you see a Kirchner painted during World War II, and you realize the significance of the war on the German psyche, the bright color palette juxtaposed with the dark realities portrayed in the piece allows you to step into another human's shoes. For a moment, it's no longer about being German or a painting, but about being a human being, feeling your life ravaged by war.

That's the power of art.

Love \\ Christelle

P.S. The last painting called Burn, Baby, Burn was created by Matta, a surrealist Chilean artist. He greatly admired Picasso's Guernica, and was appalled by the effects of war. LACMA says, "Burn, Baby, Burn work was initially inspired by the horrific attacks of the Vietnam War. In 1965 the Watts riots erupted in Los Angeles when a California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer pulled over a black man on charges of drunk driving. Soon after, thousands of people began protesting the deepest discriminatory practices of the LAPD, reflecting the profound racial divisiveness of the city. Matta saw the Vietnam War and the Watts riots as connected. The cry 'Burn, Baby! Burn!' was coined by the charismatic local radio giant Magnificent Montague, who would shout the phrase every time a piece of soul music got him excited. Listeners in Los Angeles appropriated the cry for the arson that marked the riots."