Artist as Activist

The relationship between these two articles is interesting as they both highlight the role art can have in politics.

In reading Campbell’s article it shows the effects the media has in relationship to social change. This is highlighted in the article on page 57. Where through the reproduction of images of Emmets Till in a black-owned newspaper caused an outcry within the black community, this anger helped became part of the force behind the lead-up to the civil rights movement in the late 1950’s. In this text Campbell highlights the power of public awareness for a cause. In this case public awareness was created through photographs that were of a graphic nature. As a way to highlight the horrors which some people were facing. The photographs, a mutilated body, bought the realities of slavery home for many people and inspired action and social change within a community. Campbell suggests that Images that are of social significance to a wide audience (whether they are pleasing or otherwise) should be displayed to a wide audience.

In contrast to Campbell’s style of highlighting the divisions between groups of people and their effects when certain events are highlighted through the media, through imagery and photography. Benjamin discusses the relationship of the camera is a tool to change the reaction of the masses towards art, (59) and how individual response is determined by the attitudes of a mass audience. This shows the importance that public awareness has in relation to an individual response. (59) Art is a form of self-expression and a way of expressing the frustrations of life. It is extremely important for artists to get involved with work of a political nature as it causes discussion and social change.


Campbell, David. “Horrific Blindness: Images of Death in Contemporary Media.” Journal of Cultural Research. Vol 8, Number 1, January 2004. Pp55-74

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Reprinted in Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas Kellner eds, Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. Pp. 48-70

The Artist as Trickster

‘The 10 Predicaments of Maui: Notes on Tricksters’, was written by Natalie Robertson, a photo media artist who is currently a senior lecturer in photography at Unitec in Auckland. In the reading she proposes that artists are a type of mythological trickster. The trickster is an archetype that crosses many cultures and appears in a wide variety of popular media such as a Coyote (1). She believes artists are “independent spirits that slip out from under domination and control, shaping and determining their own direction” (20). In elaboration on this she believes that the trickster is part of life as it has appeared all throughout history and she compares the artists to trickster because we have a way of pointing things out and showing them in a new way, this is explained by bring to light “new ways of seeing the world around us.” (20) Robertson links the artist with the trickster in their confrontation of culture, display of curiosity and by questioning standard practice, often through active investigation (20). As artists we challenge what is perceived though playful and humorous ways, changing the boundaries and creating new areas of investigation.


Robertson compares Francis Alys practice to that of a trickster as he makes works that have a specific narrative but explore the absurd, illogical and at times silly. Francis Alys has a multi- disciplinary practice in which he studies topics that are relevant to today’s world. His creative practice can be compared to that of the trickster. He aims not to show things for “ the ways things are,” (2) but to represent views, images, and representations in an way that contributes to our sense of who we are and our engagement with the world around us. This can be futher explained when we consider his work ‘The Ambassador’ at the Venice Biennale in 2001 where he sent a peacock to represent him as a way of removing focus from himself.

Many contemporary artists such as Alys can be acknowledged as a form of trickster as they challenge our views of the world around us which are relevant to contemporary society.







1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickster accessed Tuesday August 4, 2009

2 )Nichols,B Ideology and the image. Indiana University press, Bloomington pp 2-3

Robertson, N. (2008). ‘The 10 Predicaments of Maui: Notes on Tricksters’, in B. Butler (ed.) Artspace & Clouds. Auckland: Artspace, Vol. 1, pp. 48-70.