Théroigne (2025) by cornelia es said, 50×50 cm, oil on canvas
Definition, Meaning, and Power of Political Art in the 21st Century
Political Art and Politics – A Long Affair
Art has never existed in a vacuum. From ancient cave paintings depicting power and survival to Renaissance frescoes commissioned by the Church, and protest banners in today’s climate marches—art has always been political. In a world increasingly shaped by algorithmic control and rising authoritarianism, the question is not whether art is political, but how it performs that function now.Definition: What Makes Art Political?
Political art doesn’t require slogans. It doesn’t always scream—sometimes it whispers. It can be overt or subtle, explicit or coded. What defines political art is intention and impact: it critiques power, exposes injustice, or imagines alternatives to the status quo.
Key concepts:
- Art as a political tool: influencing public opinion, evoking empathy, stirring dissent.
- Political function of art: legitimizing, resisting, remembering, reimagining.
- From propaganda to protest: the full spectrum of art’s political capacity.
Francisco Goya’s The Third of May 1808 portrays the execution of Spanish rebels by Napoleon’s troops, highlighting the horrors of war.
Why Is Art Political?
Art shapes perception. It frames narratives. In times of crisis, art becomes both a mirror and a hammer—revealing the hidden and challenging the accepted.
My own political paintings engage in this tension. These pieces don’t deliver answers. They provoke, disturb, question. That’s political.
Distinction:
Propaganda serves power.
Resistance art questions it.
Pablo Picasso’s Guernica responds to the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, serving as a powerful anti-war statement.
The Power of Symbolism: From Murals to Memes
Symbols bypass logic and hit straight at emotion. Murals in occupied zones, performance pieces in city squares, TikTok videos mocking police violence—different mediums, same mission.
- Traditional forms: murals, oil painting, installations
- Contemporary forms: digital protest art, AI-assisted visual collage, viral memes
- Hybrid spaces: e.g., Cornelia Es Said’s work using image transfer + oil paint + AI—technology and tactile matter interwoven.
Conor Harrington’s mural The Blind Patriot explores America’s relationship with its flag and critiques nationalism.
Historical Examples of Political Art
Käthe Kollwitz: Working in early 20th-century Germany, Kollwitz created harrowing images of working-class life and wartime loss. Her prints, such as The Grieving Parents, were shaped by personal tragedy and her anti-war stance during WWI and WWII.
Diego Rivera: A Mexican muralist whose large-scale works, like those in the Detroit Institute of Arts, celebrated labor and indigenous heritage while critiquing capitalist exploitation in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution.
Overview of Detroit Industry, North Wall, 1932-33, fresco by Diego Rivera. Detroit Institute of Arts.
Dorothea Lange: During the Great Depression, Lange documented American poverty under the Farm Security Administration, turning photography into a tool for social reform.
Portrait by Dorothea Lange shows Florence Thompson with several of her children in a photograph known as “Migrant Mother“.
Contemporary Examples of Political Art
Banksy: Emerging in post-Thatcherite Britain, Banksy uses street art to question surveillance, militarism, and capitalist spectacle in the neoliberal era.
Banksy Graffiti in Bethlehem
Date May 2008
Source Own work
Author Photo: Pawel Ryszawa
Graffiti: Banksy
Zanele Muholi: Their portraits of Black LGBTQ+ individuals in South Africa confront systemic erasure and violence while celebrating queer resilience.
Bambatha I by Zanele Muholi at Middelheimmuseum
Ai Weiwei: From critiques of state censorship to humanitarian advocacy, Ai Weiwei’s work reflects the pressures of authoritarianism and globalization in 21st-century China.
Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds Installation at Tate Modern.
Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net).
Can Political Art Create Change?
No, it doesn’t topple regimes. But yes—it can shift consciousness. Political art builds counter-narratives, emotional alliances, public memory, and shared refusal. It fuels the preconditions for change.
Aesthetic resistance isn’t a luxury. It’s survival. Art creates space—for doubt, for dialogue, for dissent.
Keith Haring: Through his bold, accessible visual language and public murals, Haring brought awareness to issues like AIDS, apartheid, and police brutality. His art engaged communities directly in the fight for social justice.
The Art of Staying Awake
In an era of curated numbness and predictive algorithms, political art keeps us alert. It asks uncomfortable questions. It refuses easy answers. And it reminds us that the act of seeing—truly seeing—is political in itself.
When history repeats or forgets itself, it is often the artist who raises a hand—not to teach, but to interrupt. To wake us up.