BB Press Agency, Tomas Rafa (51-61/61)

The front page of the 7th Berlin Biennale website shows the project Art Covers Politics, which presents images submitted by artists and others who are willing to react on and report immediately about political events. Active since September 1, 2011, the project was continued throughout the Berlin Biennale.

With all the turmoil and struggles happening today—demonstrations, protests, Occupy movements, etc.—the political fight goes on. Nevertheless the mainstream media selects which events to cover and in this way decides what is regarded as political. We can only observe the hectic activity of this media-machine, reduced to passive bystanders and viewers of political spectacle. Artists, with their subtle use of images and social intuition, could be good observers of reality who define what is political by covering these events themselves, showing us an alternative to the media’s logic.
Many people behind social media are already doing it. But we’d like to use this tool within art. That’s why we sent out the call for people to react to and document political events, and to engage in direct political action without it being labeled non-art or activism. Especially artists can be engaged observers, who use their skills to empower the communities they are linked to. No tricky art, no mystery, just pure message, pure information, and easy direct action: art-journalism. In this way the Berlin Biennale website turns from a marketing tool into an advocacy tool.


Tomáš Rafa, born in Žilina, is an artist who studied at the Academy of Fine Arts (Grzegorz Kowalski studio) in Warsaw.
 


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