Art is the Twin of Democracy
Art is the Twin of Democracy
Opinion piece by Augusta Atla, published in Weekendavisen - 9. February 2024
Link to the original article in Weekendavisen
The blasphemy law seeks to pinion the visual arts and raises the question of what art is.
I often use Christian objects in my art: for example, pages ripped out of a Bible for collages, or entire Bibles, rocking and immersed in water and coloured pigment, in large-scale installations.
Art is a transformation and reflection of our inherited cultural ideas and, in my case, a transformation of the ideas and historiography of patriarchy – in other words, feminist art. If you rip even a single page out of an actual Bible or tear the book completely apart in the process of your work, it is an artistic image (imago, from Latin).
Playing the role of a violent person does not make an actor a violent person. Similarly, visual art is an ancient, formalised language: a tradition and a visual language that are not black and white and cannot be translated literally.
In the West, we have developed traditions that pave the way for the language of art. Since 500 BC and the very first drama in ancient Greece, we have been barrier-breaking and investigative: in the performing arts, literature, music and, yes, visual art.
Even though the new blasphemy law has made allowances for epic and narrative art forms (performing arts and film), the law limits visual art. When it comes to collages, installations, performances and conceptual works, no one can tell when “impropriety is a minor element of a work”. Consequently, the law has criminalised and thereby censored works that feature religious texts (even under Chapter 12 of the Criminal Code). In other words, as a visual artist, I am now, in principle, also a traitor – and just think what consequences that may have in terms of possible surveillance.
If one day the Iranian-Danish artist Firoozeh Bazrafkan, whose practice contravenes the new law, were to be monitored by the state, I think she ought to be remunerated. Otherwise, it would be free art streaming.
In the newspaper Weekendavisen (WA #05), the MP Jan E. Jørgensen (The Liberal Party of Denmark) states: “I’m really surprised how worked up they’ve [artists and cultural life, ed.] got.” What Jørgensen so inelegantly refers to is the fact that artists and art professionals – both in the context of the first loony version of the law, which would have been impossible to implement, and the second, flimsier version – have pointed out how utterly unnecessary it is to include art in the law.
But why have they gone so far and chosen to include art in the clampdown? Is it not out of proportion? They could have inserted a single line in the text to completely exempt art. Even though ‘artist’ is not a protected title, I am sure that Denmark’s judges are quite capable of reading the CV and educational history of the accused.
Jørgensen goes on: “But the law is necessary. It forbids something I would hope, and once also believed that people would be able to handle themselves. What is the point of setting the Koran on fire, when it will upset so many law-abiding Muslims?”
These are simply not the arguments that politicians have been using repeatedly since September 2023. They stated that the bill would serve to prevent Koran-burnings so as not to give rise to terrorism. If the only intention was to stop the burning of Korans, then a book-burning law with a sunset clause and possibly classified into geographical metre zones (around embassies in Denmark) would have been sufficient.
Is it really true when Jan E. Jørgensen claims that it “is one of the costs of war” and that an artist such as “Firoozeh Bazrafkan wants to protest against hanging homosexuals from cranes in Iran, and she must find other ways to express her artistic protest, and I am sure she can”?
Why say that the intention of the law is not to affect art, when the law does indeed affect art? Politicians could at least get real and tell the truth: that the purpose of the law is to pinion visual art. The law is clearly aimed at art, when the ripped-out religious pages include Islam.
As Jørgensen himself says to Weekendavisen: ”Let’s start by stating that we only have problems with Islam.”
Then why include the other 184 recognised religions?
What exactly is art? It is an ancient, well-developed language in the West, in which criticism and analysis are basic methods. As Winston Churchill – unlike our present Danish government – said in a speech to the Royal Academy in London in 1927, seeking to protect his Western culture: “I would be prepared to say that all forms of art and action are in principle the same – all forms of action and art really require at their critical moments the same kind of decisions.”
Art looks at everything with new eyes: especially at that which has the power to prevent humankind and their rights (including gender equality) from flourishing. Artists use their methods to magic power away, to transform symbols and to free themselves in order to look at human identity and the history of ideas through the big kaleidoscope: a myriad of thoughts and ideas that swarm like butterflies from time immemorial and illuminate our minds.
Art revolves around existence and opens up difficult questions about being human. It shatters and prizes up the great continents of inappropriate ideas in order to activate sentient, self-reflective human beings. It is the role of modern art – and of democracy too – to insist on the right of the individual to think freely, and to protect their rights. If a democracy starts protecting regimes from criticism, then it is no longer a democracy. All religions should be equal in the terms of their capacity to withstand harsh criticism. A work of art can be said to be democracy in action. In this sense, the blasphemy law also reveals that we are embroiled in a serious cultural battle.
The law sets us back centuries, asserting a dogmatic worldview and awarding special protection in our visual art to the most powerful religions. Politicians have quite simply pinioned visual art in favour of religions. This is inexcusable.
“I would be prepared to say that all forms of art and action are in principle the same – all forms of action and art really require at their critical moments the same kind of decisions.” Winston Churchill
Link to the original article in Weekendavisen