I have been at NYU for 38 years, and all
of my 3 degrees are from NYU.
So I bleed purple, if you can believe that. The conversation today encompasses many of
the conversations I have, including-- and, conversations, I mean classes--
I teach African American Cinema, the
freshman class, The World Through Art
at Tisch, and my advanced all-school all-University class called The Anatomy of
Difference. So this is a weaving of all
of those conversations together
to talk about the politics of art. I have
learned over the years, through filling
in the gaps of our incomplete American
history, although I proudly wear the
American flag, and what I've learned is
to acknowledge where we are and so I
want to start by respecting the history
of the Lenape people who occupied this
land. They were the indigenous people who
lived here in what is called present-day
New York. When Europeans arrived in the
Americas,
this was the Lenape homeland, known as Lenapehoking, which is upper and lower
Delaware, Hudson River Valley, five of
the counties in New York, and the
boroughs of present-day New York.
All of this was Lenape land, and the
word Manhattan derives from the Lenape
word mannahatta, right? And you can look
that up and actually NYU has had a lot
of projects to remind us of what this
this land is. It's essential to remember
our history all of our history, and
recently at a conference I was engaged
with this quote and I bequeath it to you.
It's from George Erasmus: "Where common
memory is lacking, where people do not
share the same past, there can be no real
community.
Where community is to be formed, common
memory must be created."
And what I know before I met this quote is that art
creates common memory.
When we sit and watch a film together when we engage
with art together,
no matter where we're coming from or who we are we are, engaging in a conversation together and
from that point creating common memory.
Creating common memory is also one of
the great benefits of education, right? In
addition to the learning that is going
to take place in the classroom, there is
the learning that we are going to have
with each other: teacher to student,
student to student, we are going to learn
a great deal from each other, right? This
is not just an opportunity it is in fact
a privilege, a privilege to learn from
someone else about other parts of our
country and about other parts of the
world. Thus we'll begin a journey of
creating common memory and filling in
the gaps for each other at New York
University. As I said art helps us create
common memory and I want to also say
that all art is political-- some because
of what they have and some because of
what they omit-- but all art is political,
and all artists consciously or
unconsciously reflect the visible and
invisible world around them.
And by invisible world around them I mean
history. Some of our history is visible,
some of it is invisible, but how do we as
spectators of art, consumers of art, see
the politics in art, right? Let's think
about different works of art and how
they reflect or resist the social and
cultural politics of the times.
Edward Degas says that art is not what
you see as an artist, it is what you make
others see. So I want to go and think a
little bit about this phrase and you'll
see where it came from, right, the idea
that I mentioned, that where common
memory is lacking, where people do not
share in the same past, right, there can
be no real community. Where community is
to be formed, a common
memory must be created. And this is the
George Erasmus the person this is his
place in the world in his title. So I
want to look at a work of art that was
created as a way of showing you and
embodying this idea of arts politics, theb
department I teach in, and the notion of
all art being political. This piece of
art is overtly political but I want to
inform you that all art is political and
after today you'll be looking at how art
is political and why it's political.
So let's take a look at this and we'll
continue talking.
[MUSIC]
they call it a pipeline
but those on the front lines know that
black snake was sent for us to grow to
shed the skin
our ancestors prey of wounds old and
calloused so that we may stay so that we
may unite unity our tool no weapons are
found in this court of rule men becoming
he is steadfast in their guard
protecting women's hearts as their song
become roots roots to cast out healing
for all sentient beings to honor sacred
mother Hartford we heal the salmon will
run the mountain will grieve the rivers
will flow
the rainbow is here and prophecy tells
us all generations will hear
stand up with the First Nations and the
people have been living here for
thousands of years we've been fighting
for freedom sister Nina and the Pinta
and the Santa Maria like Geronimo
Sitting Bull Red Cloud pigs North
leonard peltier nothing poisoning the
waters four sons and the daughters so we
on the frontier one day she won cause
one people one tribe now it's us against
the pipeline get on your feet for
standing rock and we'll show you how
strong we could be when we unify
we was winning this game on planet
Earth's it's been spinning we be living
and dying but giving birth the first of
many nations celebrating them plays with
all that guy came after with all mean
these days we cater to these internet
memes internet streams it seems them
streams aren't clean we need the whole
story scene where has Celine before
water has gasoline in it Malcolm X
moment Martin Luther King with a dream
and war Bonin Wounded Knee Plus Alcatraz
dogs on it this is for a rock with
prayers we stand don't be playing home
at the earth we can't point it in a
sweat lodge singing a song for
grandfathers heat rocks all been the
spot be splashed running with a beat box
from my boy be jamming for the back
standing rock staff with you man it
takes a group of people who actually
care about Mother Earth and life and
water and sacred and the land been
sacred to say we stand up
Oh
fuck yeah a web was a gap ticket outta
da da de la paga Miniver churning water
is right mini which oniy water water is
like water like water is life water is
life I stand I stand standing standing
rock stand up stand up stand up stand up
woke up the same we don't go quite chill
on my tribal keep the mystical place his
mistake Frank
it's the calm before storm and a key
here becoming too
the battery is running
standing feet as history is on the side
repeat is it Liberty or we just happen
free as our Lander cleats from these
hands of greed see ladies found how we
face the hell
take a bow any safety grounds make a
sound little shit see the level can save
us now
Awesome, yep, thank you. So stories are
important, and more and more in our
culture, stories are being transmitted in
far more text than in history books.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who talks about
the danger of a single story, reminds us
that many stories matter, and by the way,
I could easily write a dissertation on
that music video. The amount of
information, the amount of American
history, Native American history, African
American history, military history, and
research that was in that one document
is-- it still amazes me every time I see it
Adichie says that many stories matter,
because stories have been used to
dispossess and malign, but stories can
also be used to empower and humanize.
Stories can break the dignity of a
people, but stories can also repair that
broken dignity, right? And what I love
about arts politics is the rapid pace at
which art moves and can create a
dialogue overnight with a group of
people that engage with that particular
art. I used a lot of psychology and in my
early education was a student of Freud,
and became a student of Jung later on, and
Jung wrote an awesome essay on the
relation of analytical psychology to
poetry, and from the psychological point
of view, Jung talks about art in this way.
He says that the social significance of
art lies in the way that it makes it
possible for us to find our way back to
the deepest springs of life. He goes on
to say that art is constantly at work
educating the spirit of the age and
conjuring up forms in which the age is
most lacking. That's powerful. That's a
powerful call for the business of art.
Constantly at work, educating the spirit
of the age, conjuring up the forms in
which the age is most lacking.
Isn't that a monumental job for art and
isn't that political. Of course it is. An
E.L. Doctorow said in an essay that happened
right here at NYU after 9/11--
we were in a conference and he was here
and he wrote this essay called September
14th 2001 where we were talking about
art's place after such a disaster and Doctorow says and this is very important:
Fiction is a mega discipline that
employs reportage, confession, history,
myth, legend, superstition, science,
religion, philosophy, and the intuitive
knowledge that resides in the
combination of words. It excludes no data.
Everything is acceptable and equally
appropriate, from the laws of physics to
the mutterings of poor and mad people in
the street. Proof that fiction, in fact,
embraced as fact. There is no pure
fiction. Anything we create comes from
what we already know, and in some cases
have experienced. This is one of my
favorite quotes in the world, every
lecture, almost in every class, from the
great Toni Morrison.
So in times of crisis, such as right
after 9/11, when we at the Tisch School
of the Arts were asking what is art's
place in the world, here is your answer.
This is precisely the time when artists
go to work. There is no time for despair,
no place for self-pity, no need for
silence, no room for fear. We speak, we
write, we do language. That is how
civilizations heal. That is how
civilizations heal. So how do you find
the politics in art when you leave here
today? I asked you to think about
interrogating every work of art that you
see, really look at it, and see what it's
saying, and question it. Some of the
simple and easy questions I can offer
you to do that: Where does the work of
art come from? Like, literally where does
the work of art come from? What are the
forces that have shaped it, what does it
reveal about its cultural self as was
the case with this music video, and how
do you think the audience was
anticipated in the work? I can tell you
how the audience was anticipated in the
work in that music video-- they expected
the audience to be really smart because
I go through that frame-by-frame and I
ask people what does this mean? When they
say Malcolm X moment, what does that mean?
When there's a flag upside down what
does that mean, right? Every frame is a
code and can be researched. Where does
the work of art come from? What are the
forces that have shaped it? What does it
reveal about its culture, and how is the
audience anticipated in the work? As a
black woman I can talk about black art
in this way, right,
I can see black art historically in
America as an act of witness, right,
particularly in times of segregation
right, so black art I can say has
recorded my own recorded history in some
history books. Some unrecorded truths,
some of which I just found out. I did not
know that black women were calculators
for NASA until I saw a movie. That's how
I found out. I know about
African-American filmmakers like Oscar
Micheaux who made films alongside with
D.W. Griffith, but is seldom celebrated in
the same breath. I know about Gordon
Parks, the first black filmmaker to make
a film in 1969. I'm happy that people had
the audacity to write the book Twelve
Years A Slave and Hidden Figures, and
make the film 13th. In a political
sense, these artists are saying that my
existence, in my history, is my resistance.
This is my political stance. That I am
here, that I have something
to say, that I can speak in many
languages, many artistic languages:
literature, photography, film, that I
matter, and my history matters. In this
kind of a process, right, art takes on a
political posture in society and in
culture, right, but the thing that we have
to remember-- and if you have time watch
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Danger of a
Single Story-- I am NOT one thing. None of
you are one thing. We always want to
reduce each other to one thing. I am a
woman. I am black, or you are white, or you
are from China, or you know, we are not
one thing. We are not defined by the case
that whatever maker we believe in put us
in. We are many things and we have to
explore the many things that we are in
each other and with each other.
That's the hugest benefit of being here.
I look at you and I think about, my
goodness, just in this room, what you
could learn from each other about the
world, when you have been given so many
single stories, right, take that
opportunity. Every day I get up I have to
forgive myself for not knowing the
complete and full history of America, and
I have to forgive everybody else for not
knowing my history, and I have to ask
forgiveness for not knowing the history
of people who come from other places.
Even in America, the single story, says
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, creates
stereotypes and the problem with
stereotypes is not that they are untrue,
but they are incomplete, they're only one
story. So I'm asking you today to think
about this. Where do we look at each
other and see each other? How do we look
at each other and see each other? How do
we get into each other's stories, and how
do we reconcile the differences in our
similarities and the similarities in our
differences? And how do we begin today to
create a common memory
and remember all art is political. Thank
you.
