JOSH RIVAS - AESTHETIC EVANGELISTS

Joshua Rivas

Evelyn Serrano

Art and Community Engagement

4/18/16

 Grant Kester

 Public art; Community Art is created in hopes to engage a community or art that is created with an engaged community to help further the community in specific ways.

I. The Politically Coherent Community 

There is the Political Representation and the Symbolic Representation. Now when I first read about these separate ways of representation I clung to Political Representation being the most appropriate form in which artists should abide by, when engaging in communities that are

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foreign to them. But I found myself wondering, "Does this mean the artist must wait to be 'elected' and what does this process entail and what if part of the problem, is this community that

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to be spoken up for does not even have the ability to speak up and elect an artist or
representative." These two different types of representation, however, still confused me. What exactly made each type different. So I looked at an artist, I admire, and tried to understand where he would

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tand in this categorizing. JR is the type of artist who sees a struggle and offers his service as to the community in hopes to give them a voice. I am not entirely familiar with his process but hypothetically it seems that JR goes into a community and hears their stories and gives these people a voice. I have seen him do work in Cuba where he explains to people what he

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was hoping to accomplish and that he would like to photograph the people, he was speaking with, to add to his art. This to me seems like symbolic representation. He is somewhat taking advantage of a community and appropriating. However, he does it in a way that does not offend the community in which he engages unlike Jaar and his unfortunate piece of art entitled "One or Two Things I Know About Them". JR may take the role of the representative without asking, but

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he is the representative he is clear with his goals and allows people to determine whether or not they want to be involved. JR walks a very complex line because when JR travels to other communities he is faced with thousands of micro communities that live within the community JR is representing and he must be unafraid of offending these other communities when representing a specific group of people.

II. Malleable subjects and Moral Pedagogy

 I am glad Kester explains how conservatives were a root of many problems.I think Kester made his point clear in using this example. Community Artists can sometimes get in their head; "(1) that the individual is morally or emotionally flawed, (2) that this flaw bears a causal relation to their current (economically, emotionally, socially, or creatively) "disempowered" status, and (3) that the artist is in a position to remedy this flaw, and to provide the subject with what George F. Will would call the "social capital Necessary for civilized living"(Kester); And forget to address the root of a problem and instead solve the problem. So like the 3rd point leaves off we as artists sometimes have an urge to fix communities. Usually we come in with privileges and feel obligated to use those privileges to help. I would like to look at my trip to Cuba. The first few days I was in Cuba I experienced something very interesting. I noticed some of the students felt an obligation to our Cuban Collaborators. An obligation that came from our privilege, but also this idea that they are suffering in a way because of the laws of their government. I find that through discussions there was a sense of, 'we must save them, we must fight for them'. I think that last concept was what made me realize something. We, as artists, cannot ever win someone else's fight for them. Communities must fight for themselves and when we, as artists, come into a community and engage we must be aware that we are not there to fight them, but rather lend our talents as artists in a way that lacks ego. There is a sense of

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emotionlessness that must come with the job. I find that this allows the most impact because when an artist comes into a community with their own agenda, for how a battle must be won, it backfires. Just look to Jaar's art piece again and how the women were not pleased with the

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esults of his art work because he attempted to win a battle that was not his in the first place. To me I find this similar to the concepts of cultural appropriation. An artist inserts themselves into the fray of a battle that does not belong to them and use their pain or crisis as a muse to help

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reate potent and strong art. We as artists understand that hardship can lead to strong art and that
may attract artists to seek out hardship and make it their own for the purpose of creating potent

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art. I appreciate Kester Writing this article in hopes to inform me and my fellow artists to ask ourselves of our intention because it is clear that a strong and healthy intention allows room for

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trong and potent art.

 Bibliography

Kester, Grant. "Aesthetic Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary

 Community Art1." (n.d.): n. pag. Web. <http://media.wix.com/ugd/

 87d3d4_35804c76fa104e138eb44fbd2c2f979e.pdf>.

"Standing March Collaboration with Darren Aronofsky in Paris." JR. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr.

2016. <http://www.jr-art.net/>.

"Alfredo Jaar." Alfredo Jaar. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2016. <http://www.alfredojaar.net/>.