A guest lecture by artist Frida Yngström raised interesting questions, not least about the border between (political) art and (non-art) politics. Interestingly enough, the distinction between the two seemed to be less important to artists than to other actors and institutions. Frida herself claimed to be pretty uninterested in the issue, which I guess you could say goes for myself as well. To the government of Belarus and the municipality of Göteborg, however, the drawing of that line proved to be all the more important. Frida told us of how, when entering Belarus, she made sure not to mention that she was there to make art, as this might not be appreciated by the regime. In Göteborg, on the other hand, it apparently was important to label what you do as “art”; otherwise, the posters put up around the city in one of Frida’s projects could be seen as violating the zero tolerance policy for graffiti and illegal posters adopted by the municipality, and might be removed by the authorities.
Another example that I found almost too strange was believe came from another project of Frida’s. In one project she worked with illegal aliens in Gothenburg. At the end of the project, these refugees were given papers stating that they had been involved in an art project with the Valand school of fine arts. According to Frida, this could be interpreted as a sign that these people had “interacted with Swedish society”, which might mean that they stood better chances of being given residence permits.
Bizarre as these anecdotes may be, at least I’m glad that the main advocates for this pedantic hair-splitting concerning something’s status as art or non-art did not come from artists themselves, but from forces outside the art world. This just puts one more weapon at the disposal of the artist: deciding whether to call something art or not can actually be an aesthetic – not to mention a political – tool.
Johan Landgren
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