Regarding the question of whether there is or ought to be a sense of responsibility or obligation (and to what?) in making artistic decisions — beginning with the decision to be a fulltime artist — here is a quote from Ken Kesey’s speech in front of The Reality Club, in October 1989:

“you can’t blame the President for the state of the country, it’s always the poets’ fault. You can’t expect politicians to come up with a vision, they don’t have it in them. Poets have to come up with the vision and they have to turn it on so it sparks and catches hold.”

This quote was brought up recently by members of The Reality Club with regard to the mobilization and emergency response of numerous eminent philosophers, scientists, and public intellectuals, after George W. Bush, Bill Frist, and John McCain, announced their support of teaching Intelligent Design in American schools, in April 2006.  The “new athiest” movement has only picked up speed and political influence since.  Where were the artists?  Sure, scathing, pissed-off, Bush-era visual art, from Jules de Balincourt to Steve Powers to Mark Tribe to The Yes Men, will probably be recognized as one of the defining currents in American art this past decade.  But, as Critical Art Ensemble has written, one of the defining features of contemporary art from 2000 till 2008 was how very little government paid attention to it; an unprecedentedly small amount of attention.  Is this because many thousands of other American artists were not interested in expressly directing their practice towards politics in a big way, or is it because activist art is secretly considered a little crazy by the art community?  Or is it just not the artist’s (let’s stick to the American artist) job to get involved in every political skirmish or infringement?