How culture outlives strongmen and rewrites history to win the war over imagination
Photo by Dylan Shaw on Unsplash
Tinpot dictators fucking hate art.
Given where the world seems to be headed, that fact both empowers and terrifies me.
Because for people like me, it means there’s work to be done.
But it also means we’re on a path that leads to artists who tell the truth finding themselves in the crosshairs.
I’m a writer who produces work in many forms. My latest novel, SUNDAY REILLY IS ALL OUT OF F*CKS TO GIVE, came out on Tuesday. Is it political? No. On paper, it’s a funny, sweary read about a woman of a certain age who upends her life and takes off to the Greek islands.
But if you’ve known me around these parts for a bit, or follow me on Threads, you’ll know that I have an opinion or two. I also have an agenda to push. That agenda finds its way into everything I make. So, while you’re reading about Sunday’s often disastrous, but ultimately uplifting, adventures in the Aegean, there’s something else at play.
Reviewer Ashleigh Miekle gets it: “This is a book about being yourself. About standing up against judgment and not caring about what the world or people who look down on you think. And about embracing that…. This is a book for anyone and any woman who has ever felt this way or wants to make a change and start being seen as her own person, not an extension of the identities society puts on her.”
And she’s bang-on. It’s exactly what I was trying to say.
Why should that matter for the Trumps, the Putins, the Modis, and the Orbáns of the world?
With all the power clutched in their unnaturally stubby, grubby, grabby little fingers, why would they even care?
How much of a threat can come from a woman of a certain age like me? Or a dancer working three jobs to pay for her lessons? Or a half-starved photographer who makes art for an audience of three including at least one parent and a landlord who hopes to one day see a rent cheque come through?
Because one day, that artist might make something like this.
It’s an image that will go down in the annals of frontline photography.
When John Abernathy threw his Leica camera to fellow photojournalist, Pierre Lavie, last week in Minneapolis, the single frame Lavie captured said more about the urban warfare tearing an American city apart and the regime that’s encouraging it, than any long-winded, sternly-worded missive from a politician ever could.
That potent image is out in the world. It condemns the regime by virtue of its very existence. There’s no stuffing the toothpaste back in the tube.
It’s something I know a bit about. Not toothpaste. Art and authoritarianism.
Because before I decided to make things myself rather than write about other people who make things, I clocked up a PhD in art history. I’ve also written three documentary series that focus on authoritarian regimes, with one covering the intersection between totalitarian governments and the exploitation of visual culture. Yeah. Colour and movement.
And I can tell you with absolute certainty that artists are, and will always be, the most potent voices of the revolution.
That’s because would-be dictators can meet violent resistance head-on.
Intellectual rebellion is another thing altogether. Because it exists in our minds.
I’m not just talking high art
… Yeah, yeah. Save the Snoop Dog jokes, thanks.
I mean everyone from comedians, rappers, and street artists, to screenwriters, playwrights, and country music singers. Even authors of popular novels who fling shit on social media.
Every person who uses their skills and voices to reach an audience is a threat. Because artists speak in tongues. If they’re halfway good at what they do, they communicate in subtext. They don’t inflame; they inspire.
It’s that connection to an audience that terrifies would-be strongmen.
Because the war on culture is all about control
Real artists don’t take too well to being put on a leash… unless it’s something fabulous and bespoke in soft leather by an Italian designer that’s just the ticket for the Venice Biennale vernissage.
But even when they appear to be playing nice, they’ll be pissing on the rug under the table when you’re not looking.
Dictators despise art because it exists in a liminal zone between the subconscious mind and the physical world. It’s the place where imagination takes flight. And imagination is the sworn enemy of authoritarianism, because it allows people to picture a world without walls.
Tens of thousands of years ago, the first human artists were necromancers; spiritual leaders; a bridge between the spirit world, and the physical world.
They were truth tellers. Seers. Visionaries.
Attempting to control them is like trying to bottle the wind… grasp the clouds in your hands… trap birdsong in a bottle.
True art – and artists – cannot be tamed
There are no shackles that can bind thoughts and dreams.
That’s true of all of us. But artists are the conduits between the deepest, darkest corners of our souls and the bright light of consciousness. They give physical form to our fears, our hopes, and our dreams.
The best art bypasses awareness and speaks directly to our souls.
That’s the genius in Pierre Lavie’s photograph. Even if you’ve never studied art, it will speak to you.
Why is it so powerful?
OK, I’ll do the art historian thing and break it down for you.
It begins with the flash of colour at the heart of the composition, drawing our eye into the maelstrom. An axis line leads us from that point to Abernathy, then through his airborne camera, and, beyond that, but out of sight, the unseen point of refuge: the safe hands of his fellow photographer.
The camera, and the images it holds, represent truth. Sanctuary is the clear space in the lower half of the composition, beyond the mad scramble at the centre.
But Lavie has captured a moment of perfect tension. Will the camera/truth make it to the safe zone? Will the sacrifice pay off? And what of Abernathy, who is martyring himself to make sure word gets out? He is the focal point while all around him is chaos.
He’s caught in the eye of the storm; trapped in a tangle of uniformed limbs and framed by the hypermasculine figure of a faceless attacker clutching his own genitals.
Abernathy is trapped behind a grid of jackboots and combat-gear-clad legs: the bars of an urban authoritarian prison. We know that whatever happens to him next will be dreadful. Despite that, he is calm. Resolute. Certain that what he is doing is important.
This is a portrait of good versus evil. Truth versus lies. Sacrifice versus violence.
Armed conflict makes for some powerful art
There are two strands of military art.
One is represented by the rousing triumphalism of the iconic photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal at Iwo Jima; a composition aped consciously or not, by Evan Vucci of Associated Press when he captured the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in 2024.
But the images that change the narrative are those that fall into the same class as Pierre Lavie’s photograph. Nick Ut’s searing portrait of Vietnamese napalm victims after an American attack near Trang Bang. Eddie Adams’ shot of the moment a Viet Cong soldier is executed. And Robert Capa’s Falling Soldier, taken in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War.
These artworks change the world
And funnily enough, many of them come from Spain.
As a kid, one of my most treasured collections of books was a set of slimline editions called the Peebles Art Library. When I say kid, I mean under ten. Yes, I was peculiar.
The book on Romanticism contained a reproduction of Goya’s The Third of May 1808. I was obsessed. As I say… peculiar.
Even at that age, I recognised it as something remarkable. I’ve since learnt so much more about the wheres, whys, and hows of it. But even as a small human, its power spoke to me through a tiny reproduction on a page.
Painted during the Napoleonic occupation of Spain, the dehumanised line of French soldiers mowing down Spanish civilians in cold blood has been called the first truly great revolutionary painting.
It was the first conflict to be called a “guerrilla” war, from the Spanish guerra, meaning “war.” The French soldiers are dehumanised—faceless, bloodless, grey. They raise their bayonetted rifles against their victims, who plead for their lives; limbs sprawled, some already dead, blood streaming into the dust.
Our eyes are pulled in by the central figure in white, his arms outstretched, begs for clemency. It’s no accident that his stance echoes Christ on the cross.
Disasters of War
Goya’s experiences of the French occupation inspired him to create the series of eighty prints, The Disasters of War (1810-20) that could be lifted straight out of a slasher pic. The gruesome and brutal compositions were so frank in their criticism of the French occupation and the Spanish monarchy that they were not published during his lifetime.
Goya was building on the foundation laid by the French artist, Jacques Callot who, in 1633, created what is called the first anti-war art in the western tradition. The eighteen tiny etchings graphically portray unimaginable military atrocities and civilian suffering during the Thirty Years’ War.
Four hundred years later, they still have the power to horrify.
Artists hold power to account
A direct line can be drawn from Callot, through Goya, to the most famous anti-war painting of all time.
Picasso’s Guernica captures the artist’s horror and fury at the aerial bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by German forces during the Spanish Civil War. The attack was planned by the Nazi blood-sausage in a suit, Hermann Göring, as a macabre birthday treat for the Führer. Yes, really.
With the chaotic composition focusing on the screaming mother and her dead child, dismembered soldiers, and a dying horse representing Spanish sovereignty, Picasso used a black and white palette to echo the medium of wartime photography.
No shades of grey
Artworks like Guernica are unambiguous. There’s no questioning the artist’s intent.
But the art that sends authoritarian leaders to DEFCON 1 is more subtle.
That’s because the messaging is subversive. It packs a punch, but it’s difficult to identify why. And that makes it almost impossible to police.
Here’s an example. Last week, I visited a Ron Mueck exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Renowned for his uncannily lifelike human figures, Mueck is an Australian artist who gained an international following as a member of the Young British Artists (YBA) movement. Yeah, I don’t know why Mueck qualified as “British” – the money-spinning YBA movement was an invention of the billionaire British ad impresario and art collector, Charles Saatchi. Ask him.
Back to the art. Couple Under an Umbrella feels like it should be an intimate and affectionate portrait of a man and woman enjoying a day at the beach. But it’s unsettling. And it’s difficult to know why, unless you know where to look. Which I do.
I’ve studied more works of art, up close and personal, than I’ve had hot dinners. I can read the prompts. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Other times, it’s not. Sometimes I wish I could just sit in the moment and just feel. But as soon as a work of art grabs me – and it may be a book, a film, a song, or a sculpture – I can’t stop my mind searching for the things that are making me feel.
Here are my photos of the things in this artwork that make it something more than just an incredible technical feat.
Look at the painfully tight clamp of the woman’s wedding ring around her finger. It’s suffocating. Constrictive. It’s uncomfortable to look at.
Then there’s the juxtaposition of the two figures. She’s not enjoying her day in the sun. She’s slumped down… resigned. Why is his head in her lap rather than the other way round? Why is he gripping her arm like that, so tightly it’s cutting off circulation?
The woman is a piece of furniture in human form.
She’s a convenience and comfort to him. A possession.
What is he to her? A burden. An obligation.
This is what the best art does
It hits you in the solar plexus. Even when you’re not sure why. You know it, even if you can’t quite see it.
It’s also why art in service of the party line—art peddling a prevailing narrative—is not art.
It might be an artful object. But it is not art in the true sense of the word any more than a pretty colour-by-numbers landscape churned out in a factory and sold in IKEA as wall decoration can’t be called art.
It is a visual product. It may be pleasing to the eye. But it sure as fuck isn’t art.
It’s also why propaganda is not art. Yes, it’s a form of communication. It’s a craft, in the same way a beautiful piece of packaging can catch the eye, or a catchy advertising jingle can become an earworm.
Propaganda is not about expansion, exploration, or imagination. It’s not about feeling.
Propaganda isn’t art, it’s an instruction
True art isn’t about selling a product—whether that’s a pair of runners, a car, a politician, or a political slogan.
Because art lies at the core of what it means to be human.
It’s taking the seed of an idea and nurturing it into something that speaks to people. It may eventually become something that’s bought and sold. But that was never the reason for making it in the first place.
Monuments and triumphal arches speak of a moment in time. But they don’t speak of the messy, chaotic moments of life. They are how Great Men (because they are, always, men, although only a depressingly few of them are truly great) want to be remembered.
That’s all. There’s nothing meaningful about it.
Hitler loved art
Because he believed himself to be an artist.
He despised modernist art he called “degenerate,” because that art was associated with the European avant-garde promoted by, yes, Jewish patrons, collectors, and artists.
As he stole art across Europe to put in his proposed ‘Führer’ museum, he put together a collection of paintings that reflected his folksy, simplistic traditional values.
Most of the artists he admired were schlocky and unidimensional.
There was no room in his canon for nuance or complexity.
Because like all Great Men who claim to love art, what Hitler really loved was anything that reflected his own self-image.
What he really loved were lasting monuments to himself
In that desolate hour after midnight when mortality comes knocking, narcissists like Hitler know that they, too, are just worm meat in the end, just like the rest of us. So, they look for art that flatters them and will fight mortality on their behalf.
It’s why they allow artists into their orbit. And has been proved time and time again, vanity comes at a cost.
Back to Goya, his portraits of the weak-chinned, inbred Spanish Royal Family are a case study in throwing shade.
He skewered the half-wit king and his family. As a critic said at the time, “It looks as if the corner baker and his wife have won the lottery.”
Enter, the neckgina
Actually, don’t. Nobody needs that.
When Time Magazine published this cover photo of the notoriously vain American president (inexplicably so, given how little he has to work with), they created a meme for the ages.
The same is true of the remarkable series of portraits taken of Trump’s cabinet and published in Vanity Fair. They paint the subjects as cosplaying powerbrokers so far out of their depth they’re beyond salvation.
This is why people like Donald Trump hate artists.
They hate art that challenges them. Art that mocks them. Art that challenges their view of the world.
It’s no accident that some of the first people in Trump’s sights were network comedians. They are loud, they have a vast audience, and people listen to them. And they are channelling their fury about what’s happening through a medium that is extremely difficult to police. Because how do you challenge someone who’s just trying to make people laugh?
That’s why people like Donald Trump want artists under control.
Artists hold power to account
Often just by holding up a mirror.
So authoritarian leaders try to shut artists down. They defund cultural institutions or take the reins themselves (Trump-Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, anyone?). They shut libraries. Ban or burn books. Censor film and TV.
They’re trying to rewrite the record.
Trump has risen to the top as nothing more than a brand. The things he builds himself have, more often than not, gone bust. All he has is his name. And he’s putting that over everything.
He doesn’t build or make; he breaks
Look at the enshittification and goldening of the Oval Office. The Presidential Walk of Infamy. The Ballroom. The Triumphal Arch.
He’s writing himself into history in a manner he sees fit, to defy the record as it will be recorded by artists and historians across the globe.
But those attempts will, in the long-run, fail.
He’s trying to hold onto a handful of quicksilver.
Artists build, and they break boundaries
They amplify resistance to the status quo. They resist commodification in a world that seeks to reduce everything to a dollar value.
They also speak for the rest of us.
And that’s why art, and artists, are more important now than ever.
This is a battle to control the narrative.
It’s about reframing the way the future sees the present.
Because that’s how the future will learn about this timeline.
Through the cultural relics that we leave behind.
So, fight on. We will prevail. That’s a guarantee.
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