Figure 1 Wanda Zyborska (2021) Dinosaur Bach no 5. postcard, pencil and watercolour.

Where is the art and is it any good?

by Wanda Zyborska

I am exploring four questions that have been tickling me, not as someone who knows the answers, but who is asking the questions.

• What is socially engaged art?

• How do you tell if it is any good (and does it matter)?

• Is there a place for formal, aesthetic criticism of socially engaged art, and of Utopias Bach as an example?

• What does socially engaged art look like (and does it matter)?

For me these four questions all arise from one. Where is the art in socially engaged art? When I ask this people sometimes assume I mean 'where are the artefacts, are there any paintings or sculptures or other traditional objects here?'  But I do not mean this. I mean how can I tell when socially engaged art is being or becoming art, this conversation, group, interaction, provocation or activity, and can I apply concepts such as artistic quality to this, where the distinction between everyday life and art is blurred? Does Utopias Bach slip into and out of art? Or is it all art?  Is it another form of conceptual art? Or does the apparent privileging of the participant, the removal of the hand and intention of the artist, make it something entirely different? I am a visual artist, so I also ask the question, what does socially engaged art look like?…