Identity Politics in Art: A Critical Reassessment

The article argues that identity politics has been wrongly imposed on art, reducing it to mere statements about the artist's background. It contends that historical artists like Piero della Francesca, Goya, Picasso, and the YBAs worked beyond identity, exploring universal themes. Piero della Francesca, a mathematician from a papal town, painted with geometric concerns and depicted his region's people under nascent capitalism. Goya's Black Paintings express emotional turmoil and PTSD, transforming myth into a fable of humanity eating itself. Picasso's Blue Period is framed as an ecological gesamtkunstwerk, addressing humanity's place in the Anthropocene. The YBAs, including Tracey Emin, are said to focus on sustainability and historiography rather than identity. Emin's tent, hand-stitched with names, references climate displacement and multiple epistemologies. The article concludes that identity in art is something imposed, and the artist's role is to make the bed, but we lie in it.