In recent years, contemporary art has seenan explosion of artistic works and practices that fit into the context of so-called woke culture. Issues such as social justice,gender equity , decolonization, and civil rights have become central to artistic productions, curatorial projects, and marketing strategies in the field. But is this renewed focus on political and social issues a sincere act of awareness or a reflection of conformity imposed by the dynamics of the cultural market?
Art has traditionally had an ambivalent relationship with politics. While it has often made itself an instrument of contestation and rupture, it has also had to reckon with the needs of those who finance and promote it. Today, in the globalized landscape of large cultural institutions, art fairs and biennials, the political message seems to have taken an increasingly predictable and standardized form. But in this process, we risk losing something essential: the freedom of art itself.Politically engaged art is hardly new: from Goya to Picasso, from Ai Weiwei to Kara Walker, art history is replete with examples of artists who have used their work to denounce injustices and question constituted powers.
However, in the era of “woke art,” the line between activism and marketing appears increasingly blurred. Cultural institutions and major galleries seem to have realized thatsocial engagement sells: exhibitions on issues of inclusion and diversity attract audiences and funding, museums update their collections to meet representational needs, and auction houses record sales for artists who address identity issues. But is this focus on social issues a true act of transformation or just a strategic move to stay relevant?
In a context where the market increasingly dictates the rules of artistic production, the greatest risk is that of performativity: art that merely reproduces politically correct messages without real critical tension and without leaving room for truly divergent thinking. Some artists and critics raise the doubt that “woke” art may actually be a new conformism, in which the push for change is translated into a series of easily digestible and shareable formulas. The works, instead of disturbing or challenging the audience, end up reassuring them, providing a kind of collective catharsis that has no real impact on power structures.
One of the great contradictions of “woke art” is its nature as a critical voice of the system that nevertheless operates fully within it. Subversive art finds space in the most prestigious institutions and the most established markets, becoming part of a mechanism in which even dissent is incorporated as one of many market variables. The growing attention to social issues has opened up important spaces for artists who were previously marginalized, but at the same time it has given rise to a mechanism that can generate new exclusions. Some voices are amplified, others are left out, while a woke canon emerges that determines what is acceptable and what is not. Perhaps, the real challenge for contemporary art is not only to represent pressing social issues, but to do so authentically, while also defying the risk of becoming predictable. Art has always had the ability to anticipate, to break patterns, to ask uncomfortable questions. But can it still do so in an age when everything is rapidly assimilated and turned into product?
Perhaps the answer is not to reject “woke art” en bloc, but to recognize its limitations and contradictions, leaving room for a more complex debate. Art can be both ethical and unpredictable, political and ambiguous. The real question, then, is: Are we still able to accept an art that does not comfort us, that challenges us, that escapes the binary logics of right and wrong? Or do we prefer an art that, in trying to be right, ends up being only reassuring?
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