“We live in a world of suffering in which evil is rampant, a world whose events do not confirm our Being, a world that has to be resisted. It is in this situation that the aesthetic moment offers hope” (John Berger 1985)
Aesthetics has continuously gained popularity in popular discourse, yet its understandings are probably less well traced. Its history is as old as Art but more recently John Berger conceptualises aesthetics in poignant terms. An aesthetic moment, for Berger, is a sense of being before a wonder with a necessity of provoking emotion, and as we see above these moments have powerful resistive capacities manifested in hope[1]. But, how powerful can these aesthetic moments be when they exist in places that seemingly, and often unwittingly, contest their capabilities through unintentional whitewashing of creative spaces in Palestine? What impact does this have on Palestinian artists, their performative expressions and their plight against the might of the Israeli Occupation? Is the aesthetic moment of hope a vital mechanism for change or is Berger’s aesthetic moment of hope thirty-three years too old to hold significance in unstable political situations where stakes of freedom are high?
Since the first intifada (uprising), in 1987, Palestinian graffiti art has discursively resisted the Israeli Occupation. Political messages and reassertions of Palestinian identity inscribed themselves on stone in response to Palestinians who were denied international response to the 20 years of brutal Israeli military occupation. Since then, the illegal erection of the West Bank Wall, spanning an area of 720km, created a performative canvas for political artistic resistance. Though this was not the intention of the wall – it was erected as a security barrier to keep Palestinians in Palestine – its appearance offers a space through which political dialogue can be expressed. Prior to 2005, when the well-known Guerrilla graffiti artist, Banksy’s, work first appeared, the political voice was Palestinian. Post-2005 and a corpus of international work covers the wall, some of which diverges from the Palestinian situation. For instance, the Australian graffiti artist, Lushsux, painted a piece of Donald Trump responding to Eminem’s 2017 ‘attack’ on the President. Whilst it’s true that America has a hand in the Palestinian political pot (the United States funds the Israeli arms acquisition), a piece like this fails to represent the material conditions (lack of access to water, education, health services, the annexation of the wall and the very existence of the occupation). It is in this international context that the tensions set forth arise. International appropriation of the wall transforms the types of content that can be expressed. Like the denied response in the first intifada, again international actors, in the context of graffiti art, can deny Palestinian people a response. The wall can be used as foundation for fame rather than as a vehicle for political, social or indeed emotional change in Palestine.
Banksy’s work differs somewhat, his work always has a Palestinian focus. He recognises the wall, sympathises with the Palestinian situation and attempts to evade the existence of evil in Palestine through his recognisable cynical political satire which often evokes intense emotional response. Though his intentions seem pure, however, we cannot deny that his position as a foreigner complicates his work and the ability of his work to offer an aesthetic moment of hope, thus effecting the possibility of resistance, hence change. Einwohner and Hollander conceptualise resistance as being composed of three elements: a subjective account of oppression, an expressed desire to counter that oppression and an action intended specifically to counter that oppression[2]. Taking this account of resistance, Banksy falls short of being able to resist the Israeli Occupation in Palestine. Where is Banksy’s subjective account of oppression? Although he visits the wall, experiencing its imposing presence, he is always protected from its oppressive effects by the ephemerality.
It is not the intention of this article to critique Banksy’s work entirely for fear of falling into the category of whitewashing that I wish to expose and indeed because the positive and negative reception of his work is manifold. But his presence raises the question of how representative of Palestinian life his work can be? Does his work echo the colonisation of Palestine since the wall is colonised by a gaze less in line with Palestinian suffering? Does a subjective experience of oppression authenticate resistant acts, meaning that any political art created by an international can never be considered as an aesthetic moment of hope? I fear this last question to be too cynical of a view to be true. If this is the case, and indeed even if it is not, then Palestinian artists need more recognition to uphold the aesthetic moments of hope.
When we look closer to Berger’s understandings of the origins of aesthetics, and beauty more generally: the first sign of life is pain…[and] it is within this bleak natural context that beauty is encountered[3]. The vitality of the aesthetic moment to effect change within any given context becomes apparent, particularly in Palestine. The plight of the Palestinians is the tool that helps them creatively evade the existence of evil. Perhaps we can all learn from the aesthetic moment; pain inspires beauty and despite the fragility of the aesthetic moment it is the most peaceful weapon we can use to effect change emotionally, with the hope of effecting social and political change too.
Instead of us shying away from the Palestine ‘problem’, thinking the region, the religious history, the contemporary violence is too complicated to understand or sympathise with, let us let the aesthetic moment breathe it into us. After all, the aesthetic moment is emotion and wonderment, so let us let art inspire us to find out more.
[1] John Berger, The White Bird 1985, p8
[2] Einwohner and Hollander, Sociological Conceptions of Resistance
[3] John Berger, The White Bird, 1985