Practices of disobedience and clandestine citizenships: A proposal towards an anarchist theory of art

Abstract

This article will analyse the relations between anarchism and artistic practices. The relationship between anarchy and art has been well documented ever since political anarchism was first defined and includes Gustave Courbet’s painting Proudhon and his daughters from 1865, Victor Hugo’s letters about demolishing La Bastille, the Second Spanish Republic, and the Mexican Revolutionary Anarchist press and engraving workshops. All these paths and possibilities, including a belligerent use of art and the social permissiveness intrinsic to it, are used by many artists to highlight political or social issues from an anarchist perspective. The actions of anarchist artists have gone beyond the production of pieces of art: plastic mechanisms of disobedience provide alternatives by which to improve life. The limit between artistic fiction and everyday life has been deleted by creative and radical works which transgress legal norms and generate disobedient practices which offer clandestine citizenships as an alternative. This is the spirit of anarchist art.