Is art for pleasure or politics?

Henri Matisse famously declared that he dreamed of an art "devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter ... a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair." His close friend Picasso, who more often indulged the darker sides of human emotion, wasn't especially political in his art either.

Nonetheless, in the mid-1930s, during an urgent rush of creativity, the latter painted a dramatic mural-sized protest over the bombing of Guernica in the direct black and white tones of a newspaper. The political directness of his "Guernica" (pictured above) may have been inspired by the revolutionary attitude of his Mexican friend Diego Rivera, or the politically charged paintings of his historical compatriot Francisco Goya's famous series, "Disasters of War."

The painting is an obvious example of how aesthetics and protest are not mutually exclusive. Picasso showed that painter and painting could be both.

The art world has always debated where it falls on the spectrum between pleasure and politics. Do we really want art to challenge us with the conflicts and threats we find in the news every day?

If it does so, contemporary political art risks preaching to an audience comprised of a small, well-educated liberal elite that is already aligned with its message. Arguably, this art will then become complicit in feeding on the same market and power structures whose hands it bites.

Is it unfortunate that a few high-profile transgressive images can spoil a government's appetite for art that might be described as simply beautiful, inspiring or educational? Maybe. Or maybe not. Are Ai Weiwei's artistic provocations a threat -- or more like a Socratic gadfly nibbling at the state to rouse it into becoming its better self?

The responsibilities of art

At LACMA (the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where I serve as director), you'll find plenty of examples of contemporary artists addressing our political era's most pressing issues: Alejándro Iñárritu's new and beautiful VR installation that engenders empathy for the plight of immigrants; a huge and seductive painting by Mark Bradford that calls out the injustices perpetrated by U.S. police against African-American men; or a spectacular mural by Barbara Kruger that, if not strictly protest art, is certainly pointed in its cry for greater awareness of what a capitalist consumer culture portends.

Having said this, many of us gravitate toward art, or art museums, not for politics or protest, but for the type of comfort Matisse sought. We may even use art to find solace in an unstable and sometimes threatening world. The people waiting in lines outside every museum that has hosted Yayoi Kusama's recent traveling retrospective were seeking (beyond Instagram moments) pleasure and wonder in trippy, brightly-colored, literally glowing, immersive environments. And why not?

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