Art and democracy
Ilo Trajkovski
A week has passed since the end of the presidential elections. Numerous analytical attempts have been made to detect the underground forces that filled the ballot boxes. My thinking is not another belated or new revealing attempt in that direction. My goal is to look at the elections from the perspective of art. Sociology, according to some leading authors (Robert Nisbet), is not merely a scientific but also an art form. I find this perspective quite relevant, not because of the political intentions and practices of the artists, but because of the artistic performance of the politicians.
Of course, I do not dispute the political role played by artists and others in the elections. The one-act play with the “sweep”, for example, was powerful but not defining. It was a purely political act performed by an artist. I did not see art in it. I find more art in the election strategies and tactics of the government, but also in the voting behavior of independent citizens, rather than in the specific election activities of this or that artist or actor. But there must not be debate concerning tastes, right? Although coherence as an idea is central to both art and politics. Artists strive towards adjusting their own taste, while politicians towards adjusting their attitudes and opinions.
My thesis is that the elections were thought out and finalized thanks to certain artistic inspirations and practices of the strategists of the government. Artistic inspirations and performances of politicians were not only more important than the political performances of the artists, but they shaped the activities of the latter. Politics this time again was ahead of culture and art. Not only because the electoral activities took place on the stage of politics, and not in a gallery or a theater, but above all, because of the supremacy of the political sphere over everything else, even art.
Elections are the essence of representative democracy, and democracy is the most accepted political form today. Politics, according to many of its connoisseurs, was and is the art of the possible. I am convinced that these elections were performed exactly as the artist performs his work – creatively and professionally. The strategies of SDSM and its coalition partners have devised and implemented a strategy for drawing VMRO-DPMNE into the electoral race to the end. Contrary to the experience proven that the government’s candidate always won the presidential race, and always in the second round (except for Kiro Gligorov), won with the votes of the coalition partner who controls a sufficient number of ethnic Albanian votes.
The government carried out that strategic plan according to the “Vlachs” formula – the elections went smoothly and gave the planned result. With the right amount of electoral mobilization of the most loyal segment of the membership of the two main coalition partners, the opposition was drawn into the story of the fox and the goat. A rising turnout in the second round, sketched with the thinnest brush, showed it. Virtuously performed political work. Artwork par excellence – with creativity in the concept and mastery, craftsmanship in the performance. That is, of course, the double meaning of the Latin term “ars”, or the English and French “art” which in Macedonian we translate both as art and skill.
The presidential elections were a concrete and current example illustrating the thesis of politics as an art form and, as a skill, to make the impossible possible. It says that art is the objectification of various subjective (personal and collective) sensibilities – anger, fears, fantasies, desires and passions. Politics is always reaching beyond the impossible, and successful and lively is the policy that makes the impossible a reality. Art is an irreplaceable political practice. This is taught, for example, by the frescoes decorating the Council of the Republic of Siena of medieval Italy. Especially instructive are the frescoes Allegory of Good Government and Allegory of Bad Government.
The fresco painting was performed by the artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti, when the Republic was governed by a Council of nine executive magistrates in the 14th century. The Council was tasked with guaranteeing the peace and security of citizens as preconditions for the prosperity of the city and its surrounding villages. The nine Council members selected randomly every two months! That way, the influence of the few most powerful families (analogous to the parties today) was limited, whose bad government in previous periods caused major conflicts and wars among the inhabitants of the city.
At the request of the Council, the artist Lorenzetti decorated the hall of peace with three compositions. The main fresco represents the effects of good government. The fourth composition presents the effects of bad government. This way, the artist objectified the political message that united the city and on whose accomplishment the Council worked, but also the artist. The artist gave politics a form of art.
But this is not the only reason these fresco paintings are of great value. The political message it communicates is one thing. Equally important, and from an artistic perspective even more important, the aesthetic qualities through which this message is articulated are considered. It means that art comes before politics.
Today we are far from the Middle Ages. Representative democracy, and with it electoral democracy have pushed the artistic from politics. It only persists in it as an instrument. Democratic politics and elections are reduced to spectacle. Electoral democracy seems to invalidate the artistic nature of politics. Everything that remained of art in electoral politics is the “art” of billboards, flyers and similar electoral requisites. Alexis de Tocqueville, as far back as 1840, concluded that democracy imposes culture and art which, above all, is for fun and for a little money. Let’s just remember the smiling faces of top politicians from the opposition in scenes from the “Colorful Revolution”. They saw the painting of the public buildings as a fun political art, right? Such public art was supported by the previous government, and not just with the “Skopje 2104” project.
In this elections, conversely, the government performed artistic political performance. The opposition has remained loyal to its naïve artistic inspiration that the will to “draw” is the most important thing. Or maybe, everything was just a political puppet show in which the fate of the SPO and the April 27 case were being decided?