Bob Georgeson, East, 2015, Digital print
Bob Georgeson, West, 2015, Digital print
Bob Georgeson, North, 2015, Digital print
Bob Georgeson, South, 2015, Digital print
Bob Georgeson, Four points of a compass, 2015, Digital print
Happy New Year! Not. Last year ends with mindless violence in Martin Place in Sydney. This year begins with it in Paris. These photos seem to sum up the situation. I have generally avoided politics in my art and on this blog (Twitter is a different matter if you want to follow me). There have been a few exceptions: the Worlds in Collision series and the Why is this happening? video to name two, but it does raise the question of whether there has been (or perhaps should be) a link between politics and art, and ultimately what purpose that might serve. And do artists have a responsibility as the eyes of the world to address the socio-political situations that we find ourselves in?
I don't have an answer for this any more than I have a solution to the Islamic problem, or any other issue you choose to pull out of the hat. What I do know is that silence and a reluctance to, or fear of speaking out against injustice will always play into the hands of the perpetrators. And so we set the tone for the year ahead...