Artist Jonas Staal not only makes propaganda art, he also researches it. In his PhD research he shows that this art is not only made under dictators or in totalitarian states. NEMO Kennislink interviews him about this.
The research of Jonas Staal (Leiden University) is about the relationship between power and art, or propaganda art, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Staal is himself a propaganda artist and he took that experience with him during his research. This combination requires more explanation.
What makes you a propaganda artist and how do you differ from an 'ordinary' artist?
“As an artist I am active within political organizations and movements. A propaganda artist, in the words of the American writer Upton Sinclair (1878-1968), not only makes art in the world as it is, but aims to 'make a world'. Propaganda is not just about sending messages, but about creating a reality as such. It is therefore important not to reduce our understanding of propaganda to one piece of art, or poster, or campaign.”
Can you make autonomous work as a propaganda artist?
“A propaganda artist recognizes that art cannot be separated from power, but at the same time emphasizes that not all power is the same. You could say that in this sense a propaganda artist makes not only an aesthetic choice, but also a political one. The notion of 'autonomy' is, of course, paradoxical, for the concept was inconceivable without the French Revolution (1789 – 1799).”
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“Many artists supported the French Revolution in the hope of freeing their work from the shackles of the aristocracy and church. Yet that "autonomy" did not exist in isolation, but rather as part of a popular revolutionary movement that would bring about the first republic. It also spawned the first public art grants and public museums, such as the Louvre. In other words, even our concept of autonomy – which often claims the 'sovereignty' of art – is the product of a political revolution, and thus far from neutral.”
How have you as a person been influenced by political developments? And how has that influenced your art?
“The attack on Theo van Gogh in 2004 had a major impact on me. It was an attack on an artist for his work as a filmmaker on Ayaan Hirsi Ali's film Submission (2004). He himself always put his provocations against Muslims and for the War on Terror into perspective by declaring himself a 'village idiot'; to him the artist was a jester. But imaginations matter, sometimes so much so that people will kill you for your imagination. In that sense I am at odds with his work politically and artistically, because I do not believe in the innocence of art.”
“I also experienced first-hand how important art is in revolutionary movements through field research in the Philippines, in Azawad (North Mali) and Rojava. In order to bring about change, you must first imagine that change. Art in symbolism, in literature, poetry and music is always a crucial part of this. In that sense, art has a transformative potential, and that is exactly where its power lies:without the imagination of change, that change cannot take place.”
Jonas Staal about the mutual influence of art and politics, following the winning of the 2016 Charlotte Köhler prize for promising artists.
When we think of propaganda we tend to think of Nazi Germany or other totalitarian states. But you start with the British. How so?
In 1902, the British created the All Red Line, the overseas cable network for telegram messages that allowed them to control their colonies. That network was also crucial to intercept German messages to the Americans, and in that sense acted as a huge information filter. The United Kingdom tried to get the United States on its side through interception and manipulation.”
“Human communities have always promoted messages, but never on such a global scale. In concrete terms, you can say that this enormous communication network of the British was the precondition for their first modern propaganda office, called Wellington House. In this sense, modern propaganda is also a legacy of the second industrial revolution – in which the British were at the forefront – also known as the communication revolution.”
How do you think it is that we still think that propaganda is something that belongs to dictatorships?
“Adolf Hitler himself was convinced that the Germans had lost World War I through the propaganda war. And his personal experience with the effectiveness of British propaganda prompted the development of his own insane propaganda machine. But a big difference between democratic propaganda and the propaganda of dictatorships is that the former often emphatically does not want to be recognizable as propaganda. With Wellington House, the British focused on information manipulation, and the publishing of apparently 'neutral' books that validated their case."
“In propaganda studies, this is also referred to as 'black propaganda', where the source, sender and purpose of a message are not necessarily clear to a recipient. The propaganda of dictatorships, on the other hand, is largely 'white propaganda':propaganda in which the sender and the target are emphatically present and intimidating. The 'white' propaganda of Hitler and Stalin, through their aggressively visible form of propaganda, has in that sense hijacked our understanding of propaganda, and has forgotten its origins in British democracy.”
You've also looked at current democracies and according to you, propaganda still exists. What is the effect of this on art?
“Where there is power there is propaganda, and therefore also propaganda art. The fact that we no longer actively use the word, because we have come to explicitly associate it with dictatorships of the last century, does not mean that propaganda is no longer effective. Propaganda art has certainly been crucial in the context of the War on Terror.”
“Spectacular disaster films are a good example of this. Think for example of Phil Strub, the entertainment liaison from the U.S. Department of Defense since 1989. Strub in that capacity assesses director's scripts for possible "sponsorship" by the military, through extras, weapons, tanks, planes, etc. - saving movie studios millions. In return, such a script must be supportive of what the Pentagon understands as an "accurate" representation of the military, and that leads to many script changes and adjustments."
“In this way, the military influences the popular image of the military in all kinds of disaster cinema. In the War on Terror, the enemy must have no history or motive, except genuine hatred of the "free" West. War on Terror Propaganda must give heroes a face and history, and keep enemies shrouded in a dark vacuum.”