Introduction
Violence is the lifeblood of American history, politics and culture. Violence is present in many shapes and guises throughout American society, from the colonial conquests and Civil War to mass shootings, police killings. Art is an interpretative representation and direct reflection of social practices, giving readers a unique toolbox to delve into the point where these narrative display of violence has its root. Art doesn’t simply reflect the world, but takes it to task, uncovering the subtexts beneath our standard narratives and questioning assumptions about particular ideologies or cultural trends that are largely invisible in popular discourse. This article aims to examine how art — across visual arts, literature, film and other media — may offer explanation as to where violence in America arises from as place of origin and reveal an essence of its history, identity and power relational ways.
Art Reflecting Historical Violence
Violent historical events have always been captured and interpreted, through the lens of artistic observation. Artistic expression of the brutal realities as presented in art also reflects a history of American colonization, slavery, and racial oppression. In one area, the figures of African Americans are brought to life through silhouettes and murals by Kara Walker; images that capture the brutality faced by Black people who lived in constant fear. Using silhouettes, black cutouts against a white wall, Walker is able to not only accentuate the likeliness of the invisibility of Black experience with larger society but also hold space for her spectators uneasiness and participation in systemic violence.
Similarly, there are contemporary artists like Dread Scott who perform and make installations dealing with historical trauma. InfoHe said a work of Entitled “What is the Proper Way to Display A U.S. Flag?” America imperialism AND state sanctioned violence These works raise questions about the violence that birthed the nation, and its continuing presence in the body politic.
Identity and Social Violence as Commentary Art
Art also asks questions about race, identity and violence especially within communities that are marginalized. The paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat, for example, underscore race and identity not in isolation but alongside systemic violence. Basquiat frequently used symbolic imagery and text that references police brutality, racial stereotyping and social disenfranchisement inherent to the violence found within American society reflecting the construction of identity.
Similarly, the photographs of Gordon Parks explore African American daily life, revealing the ubiquity of fear and rage and protest that shadowed a nation divided by race. His famous civil rights photography, such as “American Gothic,” captured a sharp contrast of patriotism with racial rifts–claiming violence was not just physical but also psychic and cultural; measured by its ability to define who belongs and who doesn’t.
Similarly, art by LGBTQ+ artists; David Wojnarowicz and Catherine Opie further questions the mainstream erasure or silencing of queer lives under duress. A triptych of works by American artist, critic and activist David Wojnarowicz in Room 2 confront the violence of silence and neglect witnessed during the dying days of an AIDS crisis, while photography from fellow American Cleve Jones — published under her own name Catherine Opie’s — tackles overt violence Metamorphically depicted onscreen. The violence occurring in America as shown through these artworks — strikingly, has the source of its power been masculine propriety that teeters on heteronormativity to keep social settings in check?
Grim Reactions: Art in Gunland
Similarly to the issue of corporate censorship, gun culture is another uniquely American problem that arises in contemporary American art. Michael Murphy’s sculptural installation, Gun Country & Andres Serrano in his photographic series On Objects of Desire address the fetishization and normalized relationship America developed with guns. They suggest that gun violence is not merely an issue of individual pathology, but a cultural problem with strong associations to America’s tradition of frontierism and rugged individualism, in addition to the constitutional parameters that legally guarantee everyone the right to bear arms.
Murphy’s piece of hung guns arranged to approximate the United States is as if to say that the land itself was founded upon and remains in some sense within the bounds of its guns. Serraon’s images of guns as machined erotic gewgaws do little to dispel the popular culture glamorization of weapons. Their works raise the obvious question: Does America’s inclination toward violence come from a peculiar national fetish or romance with firearms, separate somehow from what those weapons actually do when fired?
Art as a form of work: researching state and structural violence
Contemporary art also reflects the reach of state violence, whether in policing, military operations or immigration policies. Artists such as Trevor Paglen, and Ai Weiwei offer a tray in which to serve the elephant in the room of chronic state control, individual surveillance and rampant oppression. His photography and data visualizations expose the hidden infrastructures of American surveillance, while his installations and films, like those of Ai Weiwei, illustrate the general effects of state oppression between American politics and international developments.
It suggests that the violence is frequently produced by states, specifically institutionalised and naturalised via mechanisms of state power which pass largely unchallenged from in the public sphere. In this sense, art is an investigating instrument that seeks to uncover the concealed mechanisms and ongoing malpractice that support brutality in the name of safety, law and order.
Popular Art: The Media and Popular Culture
Art in mass-consumption media, like film, television and music, helps influence and interpret America’s violent history as well. Those troubled men have always existed not just in the real world streets but also, within cinema, where films like Taxi Driver and The Godfather reflect so much of our national psyche — violence is baked into American masculinity, honor and power. Although Quentin Tarantino has taken much flack for the thematically fraught style of violent fisticuffs that have become his calling card, his films sometimes act as a way to criticize the aestheticising of violence — only to indulge in it at the same time, thus respondling widely about screen violence.
Hip hop music, in the words of Tupac Shakur (the young black male), Kendrick Lamar and Childish Gambino, (This is America) lay down as clear a description of systemic oppression and both individual selves and collective will to survive as any other oral history or folkorp epoch can recount. — But for this analysis let’s splice what we see referred to by mainstream propaganda and Amerikan racist ideology ‘black body’ which is criminalized through twisted Alice In Wonderland veil crafting literacy-enslavement! The work of art above tells us that violence is the norm rather than an exception to this society, reflecting what we all have internalised through media coverage and social norms.
Conclusion: Answering violence with art
Art in many ways allows us to understand where violence in America comes from, and how it is created. An opportunity to delve into legacies of trauma, identity politics, cultural obsession and the apparatus of violence within states. Through this intricate detangling, artists make evident the fact that violence is not an event from outside but rather is integral to the history, culture and identity of this country. Art can be a powerfully provocative, challenging and different way to see the world — an essential part of finding ways to understand and change the factors promoting violence in our country. As a mirror and a magnifying glass, art not only reflects the source of violence; it interrogates us to confront it, question it and in the end seek out means for transformation.
References
- Walker, Kara. (2007). My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love. Walker Art Center. Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center.
- Scott, Dread. (1989). What is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag?. Dread Scott’s official website. Retrieved from dreadscott.net.
- Basquiat, Jean-Michel. (2010). The Radiant Child. Directed by Tamra Davis. New York: Arthouse Films.
- Parks, Gordon. (1997). Half Past Autumn: A Retrospective. Washington, D.C.: Corcoran Gallery of Art.
- Wojnarowicz, David. (1991). Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration. New York: Vintage Books.
- Opie, Catherine. (2010). American Photographer. Guggenheim Museum. Retrieved from guggenheim.org.
- Murphy, Michael. (2014). Gun Country. Artist’s official website. Retrieved from michaelmurphy.com.
- Serrano, Andres. (1992). Objects of Desire. Artist’s portfolio and analysis in Artforum Magazine.
- Paglen, Trevor. (2016). Invisible: Covert Operations and Classified Landscapes. New York: Aperture.
- Weiwei, Ai. (2019). Human Flow. Directed by Ai Weiwei. Berlin: Participant Media.
- De Niro, Robert. (1976). Taxi Driver. Directed by Martin Scorsese. New York: Columbia Pictures.
- Coppola, Francis Ford. (1972). The Godfather. Paramount Pictures.
- Tarantino, Quentin. (1994). Pulp Fiction. Directed by Quentin Tarantino. Los Angeles: Miramax Films.
- Shakur, Tupac. (1996). The Rose That Grew from Concrete. New York: MTV Books/Pocket Books.
- Lamar, Kendrick. (2015). To Pimp a Butterfly. Top Dawg Entertainment, Aftermath Entertainment, Interscope Records.
- Childish Gambino. (2018). This Is America. Written by Donald Glover. Los Angeles: RCA Records.
- Kramer, Michael J. (2019). “Art and Violence in America: A History.” Journal of American History, 106(2), 387-412.
- Feldman, Allen. (1994). Formations of Violence: The Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- McCarthy, Cormac. (1985). Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West. New York: Random House
Iftikar Ahmed is a New Delhi-based art writer & researcher.
