As always, society is reflected in the art that is produced in the respective time period. Artists find inspiration—sometimes subconsciously—in everything that the experience or learn about. Thus, it makes sense that there is a reflection of the current major movement in American, Occupy Wall Street, on modern art. However, I am not going to discuss the specific ways it effects the creation of the art, but rather, how it has an effect on what type of art is produced, and America’s perception of what is art.
The argument for Occupy Wall Street is that the rich upper class, an extremely small minority, holds the majority of the wealth in America. This affluent minority is referred to as the 1%, while the rest of the American inhabitants categorized as the 99%. As far as I am concerned, this division already displays Occupy Wall Street is a useless movement that will not lead to any good. Are they (the supporters of Occupy Wall Street) trying to tell me that somebody that is unemployed because they flunked out of high school, due to laziness, should be categorized with somebody who makes a moderate living because they worked in high school and graduated with a decent GPA? 99% is a number that encompasses millions of people: there are too many discrepancies between the population this number is intended to include to make it an effective assertion. Since every person in this group has a different reason for supporting Occupy Wall Street, there can be no ‘main assertion’, and so this movement will never actually bring about change. Every previous political movement that was successful had a clear focus and goal; that is why they were successful. http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/ this tumbler post is proof of just how many different backgrounds and reasons there are for supporting Occupy Wall Street.
While there may not seem to be an obvious connection between art and Occupy Wall Street, there most certainly is. With all of the new social media that have been created and grown in popularity over the years, art has changed. Even what I would define as the three main groups of art—audio, visual, and interactive—are no longer clearly distinguished between. A video game can take all three of these art types and combine them into one fluid piece of art. A movie that is created by somebody who is not famous or rich can become art due to social media sites such as Youtube and Facebook. Unfortunately, with this increase in social medias popularity, there seems to be an increase in unrecognized artists. These new art forms, whether using different types of traditional media in untraditional ways, to employing brand new technology to create art, art often ignored. Who are they ignored by? The 1%. Since the upper class generally provides the paycheck for famous artists, many modern artists that are not recognized by the upper class barely make a living, despite their talent. Think of all of the starving artists there are—or even artists that make a moderate living—and then think about how the upper class still desires to acquire art that is “traditional”. Despite all of the changes that have occurred in American society—including the increasingly unbalanced distribution of wealth—the affluent class continues to hold onto their old beliefs. These unacknowledged artists are also part of the growing 99% in America. In this way, a clear bridge between modern art and Occupy Wall Street can be viewed.
Even while trying to research what, exactly, is the meaning behind Occupy Wall Street, every source I found was largely biased or not helpful. A blog about Occupy Wall Street is obviously going to be either for or against it depending on who created it. A site that is supposed to be informative is, once again, going to be extremely biased depending on who created it. Since there is virtually no specific and concisely outlined information about Occupy Wall Street that can be find online, I cannot support this movement. Regardless of whether I agree with the general idea—that the wealth in American needs to be redistributed—this is not the proper way of expressing these sentiments and it is not going to bring about change. We do live in a Democratic Republic after all: maybe if these people spend time educating themselves on politics, rather than standing in a street, and voted for somebody who has their sentiments in mind, they would be more successful.