Author Archives: cultureweeklyradboud

By Hana Arshid

Introduction 

Prior to the World Wide Web boom, the music industry engaged in media-driven activism and humanitarian aid through broadcasted concerts and tours, exemplified by the high-profile Band Aid and Live Aid events of the 1980s, which raised millions for Ethiopian famine relief. These celebrity-driven initiatives were criticised by both Müller (2013) and Jones (2017), who argue that celebrity humanitarianism feeds a form of marketised philanthropy that oversimplifies complex socio-political issues. They contend that Band Aid and Live Aid, through media-driven activism, employed neocolonial representations of Africa to evoke emotional responses by focusing on pity, rather than addressing the structural causes of crises (Müller, 2013; Jones, 2017). This approach advanced a depoliticised narrative, which transformed activism into what Douzinas (2007) calls “a consumer spectacle” centred on mass appeal and individual donations, ultimately reinforcing neoliberal ideals. These efforts sustained global power dynamics that perpetuated existing inequalities rather than propelling systemic change.  

The advent of music platformisation has altered the industry’s approach to humanitarian and advocacy efforts. While celebrity-driven humanitarianism remains prevalent, platforms like Bandcamp—described by Hesmondhalgh et al. (2019) as quasi-platforms—give musicians both a way to sustain their careers and a direct avenue to engage in advocacy through the sale of digital and physical music, as well as merchandise. This sets it apart from massive conglomerates like Spotify, and larger platforms such as SoundCloud, which is gradually embracing the economic model of streaming giants. Suárez (2012) maintains that smaller entities are more likely to advocate for social justice and lend legitimacy to nonprofits working for social change. Bandcamp’s model reflects this perspective, with independent musicians and labels collaborating with relief NGOs to raise funds for humanitarian crises and show solidarity. 

Several characteristics render Bandcamp particularly well suited to these endeavours, foremost among which is its commitment to an independent ethos. This resonates with independent musicians who seek to distance themselves from the corporate frameworks that dominate the mainstream music industry—a sector notorious for failing to adequately compensate artists for their labour. The producer-oriented platform endorses a moral economy, where consumer interests converge with musicians’ welfare (Hesmondhalgh et al., 2019; Rogès, 2024), thus appealing more to niche audiences than to the mass market. Appadurai’s (2012) theory of “the social life of commodities” is relevant here: a commodity’s value arises from the social interactions and exchanges that shape it. In the context of Bandcamp fundraisers, the value of music as a commodity is not solely anchored in the artistic work itself but extends to the causes that it endorses and the bonds it establishes between audiences and humanitarian initiatives. 

Since October 2023, there has been a notable proliferation of art- and music-based fundraisers for Gaza, with strong engagement from the Bandcamp community, in response to the escalating humanitarian crisis precipitated by the large-scale Israeli bombardment and the total siege of the territory. This essay explores how cultural production through fundraising on Bandcamp creates social and economic value within the digital platform economy, amidst the complexities of digital activism and humanitarianism, and the commodification of suffering. Using distant reading and sentiment analysis, the study examines the rhetorical appeals in 30 record-label fundraisers published between October 2023 and October 2024. It also probes the degree to which these fundraisers reinforce traditional media-driven humanitarian paradigms akin to those epitomised by Band Aid, and where they challenge and deconstruct these established traditions.  

Methodology 

The study integrates quantitative research methods with qualitative analysis of the derived data. It implements a distant reading algorithm, written in Python, to process textual data from 30 Bandcamp record-label pages, utilising the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) library, which offers a suite of tools for natural language processing (NLP). This statistical approach corresponds well with the complex and manifold nature of the fundraisers’ discourses (advocacy, promotion, genre-specific language). It enables the exploration of the corpus through a more ecologically valid lens that provides an objective measure of key metrics and minimises the impact of human intuition and subjectivity (Allen et al., 2020: 5), thus enhancing data reliability. 

NLP facilitates the extraction of insights from large text datasets, like Bandcamp fundraisers, through techniques such as sentiment analysis, topic detection, and recognition of named entities and relationships within texts (Kibble, 2013). The algorithm tokenises the text into individual words, removes common stopwords, and counts word frequencies. With the NLTK library as a foundation, additional algorithms were devised to conduct bigram analysis, identifying word correlations through the detection of frequently co-occurring word pairs, in addition to sentiment analysis.  

Charts and maps serve as the primary visualisation methods. Knowledge visualisation effectively communicates research to the public, supports integrated learning on complex problems, and nurtures relational perception (Boehnert, 2016). Python code is used to map the locations of record labels involved in fundraising for Gaza by assigning geographic coordinates and continent-based colours. The data is dynamically visualised on a Folium map to display location frequencies, while word frequencies, bigrams, and sentiment analysis are visualised through bar charts generated by Matplotlib. 

As for the selection criteria for the 30 Bandcamp fundraisers, they include those launched between October 2023 and October 2024, appearing in the top results for the keywords “Gaza” and “fundraise,” and containing a clear statement of purpose beyond just the use of keywords in the title. 

Political Consumerism and the Appeal for Credibility  

Bandcamp fundraisers motivate record-label fans to leverage their purchasing power as a form of political engagement in the digital sphere. George and Leidner (2019) categorise digital political engagement into three tiers—spectator, transitional, and gladiatorial—based on Milbrath’s (1981) hierarchy of political participation. Bandcamp fundraisers fit into medium-effort political engagement, as they involve two types of transitional activities: political consumerism and e-funding (George and Leidner, 2019; Ward and Vreese, 2011). These activities, unlike minimal-effort spectator activities, require greater resource allocation and financial contributions from participants. Purchases of music records, framed as contributions to relief and advocacy efforts for Gaza, is an example of political consumerism, which Ward and Vreese (2011: 402) define as an individualised collective action where “consumer choice of producers and products is based on their alignment with personal, political or ethical considerations.” 

Political consumerism on Bandcamp manifests through diverse forms of e-funding. For instance, the Moot Tapes label fundraiser in Ireland promotes what George and Leidner (2019) refer to as “e-funding through direct donations” to a partner on-the-ground relief NGO. Consumers who provide proof of donation receive free access to the label’s album, which was created specifically for fundraising. Alternatively, the label offers a “name your price” option, allowing supporters to purchase the album without necessarily donating to the partner NGO. Whether or not the album purchase supports NGOs in Gaza, its value and circulation as a commodity are shaped by politics and an association with relief efforts. The music album operates within what Appadurai (2012) terms “regimes of value,” the cultural, social, and historical frameworks that regulate the classification and exchange of such commodities (Appadurai, 2012: 83-84). 

Figure 1: Top 20 Relief-Related Bigrams (Arshid, 2024) 

Bandcamp fundraisers cultivate political consumerism through a complex interplay of trust-building mechanisms. Neilson and Paxton (2010) found a negative correlation between political consumerism and trust in institutions and official bodies; it is, meanwhile, positively linked to generalised trust, that is, societal trust, including in grassroots and independent initiatives. The collaboration between independent musicians and humanitarian institutions enhances the credibility of the fundraisers, particularly at a time when, as Sharma (2017) argues, humanitarian organisations, now functioning as brands, struggle to maintain moral authority due to their perception as commercial entities. 

An additional pillar of trust-establishment is the use of rhetorical devices intended to boost credibility. The distant reading of the fundraiser statements indicates a merger of immediate humanitarian aid with long-term advocacy discourse to form a dual-purpose appeal. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate that advocacy terms such as “liberation,” “human rights,” “solidarity,” “freedom,” and “justice” do not dominate the frequency counts to the same extent as the terms directly associated with relief. Thus, fundraisers achieve their appeal for credibility primarily by showcasing direct, short-term impact and addressing urgent needs. To enhance legitimacy for this appeal, the fundraisers align themselves with broader justice-oriented demands by drawing on terminology rooted in universally recognised values, in a bid to evoke emotional and moral responses from supporters. The advocacy-related bigrams likewise highlight the overarching theme of collective action. This “collective identity,” stemming from a “shared sense of ‘we-ness’ and ‘collective agency’” (Snow, 2001: 2212), is a strong emotional motivator for participation in donations. The blend of ethos and pathos in the fundraiser discourse aims to engineer consent (Herman and Chomsky, 1988) from supporters by reassuring them that their buy-in will generate sustainable justice, in addition to providing urgently needed relief. 

Figure 2: Top 20 Advocacy-Related Bigrams (Arshid, 2024) 

Notably, the moral sentiments underpinning classical humanitarian discourse, such as compassion and empathy, are not explicitly invoked as rhetorical devices within the fundraisers. However, terms like “children relief” carry an implicit emotional appeal, as they suggest helping vulnerable populations, evoking feelings of compassion and empathy. Sharma (2017: 3-4) proposes that these sentiments are “asymmetrical feelings” that may reinforce social and geopolitical hierarchies between benefactors (in the global North) and recipients (in the global South). The emotional and moral appeal of the Bandcamp fundraisers is not rooted in mere sympathy evocation; rather, it situates advocacy within the discourse of human rights and global solidarity, potentially generating another form of asymmetrical sentiment. This approach positions victims as subjects of universal human rights narratives, rather than individuals grounded in their specific geographic or cultural contexts (Nayar, 2009).  

The Geopolitics of Humanitarianism and the Music Industry  

Figure 3: Record Label Location Frequency Map (Arshid, 2024)  

Interactive map link: https://hanairs91.github.io/Bandcamp-Gaza-Fundraisers—Distant-Reading-and-Visualisation/  

The algorithmically generated map (Figure 3) reveals a marked concentration of Bandcamp fundraisers by record labels based in Europe and North America, a phenomenon that resonates with a deep-rooted Western tradition of conceptualising humanitarianism as the political bedrock of global solidarity. The data also corroborates the view that humanitarian fundraising, as a political mechanism in response to crises, is significantly less prevalent in the Global South. Originally envisioned as a neutral, apolitical initiative with the establishment of the International Red Cross in the mid-19th century, humanitarianism has gradually morphed into a more politicised mode of global solidarity, particularly in the aftermath of World War II and the ascension of the liberal world order (Douzinas, 2007; Lawrence and Tavernor, 2019; Hopgood, 2019). This transformation, as noted by Lawrence and Tavernor (2019), gave rise to the notion of “mediated humanitarianism,” wherein media culture—spanning television, cinema, and music—became inextricably linked with humanitarian outreach and community formation, moulding and refracting efforts toward global solidarity from the mid-20th century onward. Chouliaraki (2010) further contends that contemporary media has catalysed the emergence of “post-humanitarianism,” which encourages politically ambivalent engagement and reduces humanitarian action to commodified, superficial acts of “playful consumerism.” The politicisation and mediation of humanitarianism have transformed it into what Douzinas (2007: 12) calls the “ultimate political ideology,” wherein Western well-being is intertwined with the hardships of the Global South. 

Additionally, the dominance of Western record labels in Bandcamp fundraising efforts offers context for the tendency to prioritise universalist human rights discourse, with “Palestinian liberation” standing out as an exceptional case of a context-bound, relativist approach in the advocacy-related language (see Figure 2). The link between humanitarianism and universal human rights, two distinct manifestations of social activism (Hopgood, 2019), is deeply entrenched in Western tradition. Spivak (2023) and Douzinas (2007) maintain that NGO and relief efforts frequently serve to propagate Western neoliberal democracy under the guise of “human rights,” shaping social movements to conform to capitalist interests. While ostensibly framed as acts of solidarity, Western involvement in global crises can perpetuate imperialist sentiments and reinforce the dichotomy between the “rescuers” (those in the West) and the “suffering populations” (those in the Global South). Spivak’s (2023) radical rejection of philanthropic “giving” as a normative practice stems from her understanding that such gestures often obscure the complex historical and political realities of the situations they aim to address. Universal human rights, framed as a moral obligation, can undermine the agency of subaltern populations and  place Western intervention at the centre (Spivak’s 2023; Douzinas, 2007). While Bandcamp fundraisers are organised by independent artists and labels, rather than large relief institutions, they still replicate some of the tropes of hegemonic structures from which they declare independence.  

Distant reading of the tags labelling the albums and compilations sold to raise funds for Gaza shows that the highly contested category of “world music” ranks among the top four genres, following punk, a genre often associated with political protest and disobedience. Connell and Gibson (2004: 346) describe world music as a commercial construct that emerged in 1987 as a marketing strategy rather than an authentic genre tied to specific places. Historically, it served as a vague label for non-European and marginalised music, creating a division from other genres (Van Klyton, 2012). This divide enables Western corporations to profit by exoticising non-Western sounds and packaging them for global consumption (Connell and Gibson, 2004; Van Klyton, 2012). At its core, world music reflects the impact of globalised markets, where cultural products are detached from their geographic origins and recontextualised for Western audiences, which reinforces a Eurocentric framing of diverse cultural expressions and identities.  

Figure 4: Top 20 Most Common Genres (Arshid, 2024) 

Representation and the Commodification of Suffering  

The distant reading results regarding words associated with Palestinians expose the power imbalances embedded in the narrative about the suffering of Global South populations (Ziberi et al., 2024) and humanitarian advocacy within the independent music community on Bandcamp. The most frequent terms linked to Palestinians predominantly revolve around the need for external help, casting Palestinians as passive beneficiaries of aid. The prominence of “charity” among the top four terms highlights that a segment of the fundraisers corresponds with Tullock’s (1971) definition of charity: where the affluent leverage their position to offer gifts to the less fortunate, with the quantity and nature of aid left at the benefactor’s discretion, as Buchanan (1987) suggests. Ethical theory distinctly separates charity from justice. While charity excludes the recipients from the process of planning systemic change, justice guarantees an entitlement to aid, rather than leaving it to the benevolence of others (Coss, 2019; Fang, 2021). 

The above finding is further substantiated by an emphasis on vulnerable groups. The prevalence of terms like “children” and “youth” as demographic categories indicates that younger populations are significant in the discourse surrounding Palestinians. Such emphasis is further spurred by the facts outlined by international human rights organisations, such as Save the Children (2024), which ranked the occupied Palestinian territory as the most dangerous place in the world for children as of 10 October, 2024. However, this focus also resonates with the portrayal of children as inherently vulnerable in Western narratives, as Sergi (2021) argues, and is therefore designed to elicit maximum empathy for the Palestinian cause. 

Figures 2 and 5 illustrate how immediacy and urgency are deployed as persuasion techniques within the fundraisers’ discourse. It is undeniable that swift action is urgently required in response to the crisis in Gaza. From a discourse perspective, however, urgency rhetoric also functions as an “attention economy” mechanism (Ziberi et al., 2024), a key principle in commodity theory, particularly relevant in the age of digital platforms. In this context, human attention is treated as a scarce and highly valuable resource in an oversaturated informational landscape. To facilitate the transactional process, i.e.,”buy this album, contribute to relief efforts in Gaza,” urgency transforms passive viewers into active contributors on the digital platform. Nayar (2009) explains that transforming struggles into a consumable public domain is a form of commodification that not only stirs empathy but is also intertwined with global media industries that profit from such representations (Nayar, 2009: 151-153). This raises important discussions around the ethics of representation and the asymmetries that are entrenched within them. 

Figure 5: Words Associated with Palestinians (Arshid, 2024) 

Supporter Engagement 

Bandcamp’s resistance to platformised aesthetics, with its focus on materiality, permanence, and insularity (Hesmondhalgh et al., 2019), comes with practical limitations regarding the data available about supporters who purchase releases. Bandcamp uses a basic application programming interface (API) that offers simple functionalities for accessing and managing data. While it provides some metrics similar to those on social media platforms, the quantity of music purchasers is not displayed numerically. Instead, users are shown a collection of supporter avatars and comments. This basic API is intentional, contributing to the creation of “symbolic meaning” (Davies and Sigthorsson, 2013) around the music artefacts and their detachment from capitalist modes of production and circulation. However, it restricts insight into supporter behaviour to the analysis of comments on the record labels’ pages. 

Reactions rooted in anger, fear, outrage, and sadness are typical crisis response stimuli (Ziberi et al., 2024), but sentiment analysis of Bandcamp fundraiser supporters’ comments reveals that positive sentiments dominate. Positive words appear 8 times more frequently than negative ones, with 4.5 times more overall occurrences, indicating a clear bias towards positive emotions despite some strong negative sentiment (see Figure 6). The word “favourite” is the most frequent, as many comments reference supporters’ favourite tracks from the albums. This demonstrates a pronounced interest in the record label’s music and reflects a transactional approach, with an emphasis on personal choice. Chouliaraki (2010) suggests that post-humanitarian communication has shifted towards individualised engagement, in which personal choice and spectator “reflexivity” assume a central role. Contemporary campaigns “technologise action” by reducing participation to quick, simplified clicks—such as online donations—that favour convenience over long-term moral and emotional commitment (Boltanski, 1999; Chouliaraki, 2010). This model of humanitarianism increasingly follows a consumption-based logic, where global solidarity is reduced to transactional gestures that give the impression of action while alleviating guilt (Hopgood, 2019). 

Figure 6: Sentiment Analysis of Bandcamp Fundraiser Supporters’ Comments (Arshid, 2024) 

Negative sentiment words contain strong language that is tinged with the gravity of the underlying geopolitical crisis and reflective of anger, hardship, and oppression. Pity-related terminology is conspicuously absent from the comments, which reflects a trend in contemporary humanitarian discourse to move away from the notion of a “crisis of pity,” where humanitarian appeals relying on grand emotions like guilt have lost their potency in galvanising sustained public action (Boltanski, 1999). As Douzinas (2007) and Müller (2013) note, pity is often a paternalistic emotion directed by the West towards the Global South to legitimise existing inequalities. While platform-based music fundraisers differ from the pity-driven humanitarianism that tainted antecedents such as Band Aid, they still operate within a marketised humanitarianism, marked by low emotional intensity and short-term engagement.  

Concluding Thoughts  

The distant reading of Bandcamp fundraisers for Gaza uncovers the complex power dynamics within digital humanitarianism, particularly in the independent music sector. Although the platform facilitates grassroots relief and advocacy initiatives, much of the engagement is transactional, centred on immediate relief efforts rather than addressing deeper structural issues. The prominence of consumer-driven activism, where music purchases are framed as acts of humanitarian support, exemplifies the commodification of suffering. This underscores longstanding patterns in Western humanitarianism, which often portray Palestinians as passive recipients of aid rather than active participants in their own liberation. 

Further highlighting the dominance of Western narratives in sculpting humanitarian discourse is the geographic concentration of fundraisers in the Global North. The emphasis on vulnerable groups, especially children, evokes empathy, yet reinforces familiar tropes of victimhood. Urgency is frequently deployed as a persuasive device, reflecting the “attention economy” where immediate action is prioritised over sustained, critical engagement. 

Sentiment analysis of supporter comments indicates a predominance of positive emotional responses, with relatively minimal engagement in negative or critical discourse. This suggests that supporters are primarily motivated by personal connection to the music or to the idea of contributing to a cause, rather than by the deeper political complexities of the Gaza crisis. While this reflects a shift away from pity-driven humanitarianism in the music industry, it also points to the limits of Bandcamp fundraisers as means for advocating long-term engagement with issues of structural inequality and injustice. 

This study emphasises the imperative for further exploration of the visual and sonic rhetoric utilised in music industry fundraisers associated with the Gaza crisis. Such research has the potential to yield a more nuanced understanding of the independent music industry’s contributions to digital humanitarianism and activism. 

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Appendices 

Appendix 1: Bandcamp Fundraisers Textual Data 

https://github.com/HanaIrs91/Bandcamp-Gaza-Fundraisers—Distant-Reading-and-Visualisation/blob/main/Textual%20Data%20-%20BC%20Gaza%20Fundraisers%20-%20Final.xlsx

Appendix 2: Python Code Developed for Data Analysis and Visualisation 

• Top 20 Relief and Advocacy-Related Bigrams: https://github.com/HanaIrs91/Bandcamp-Gaza-Fundraisers—Distant-Reading-and-Visualisation/blob/main/relief%20and%20advocacy%20bigrams.py  

• Record Label Location Frequency Map: https://github.com/HanaIrs91/Bandcamp-Gaza-Fundraisers—Distant-Reading-and-Visualisation/blob/main/folium%20map.py  

• Top 20 Most Common Genres: https://github.com/HanaIrs91/Bandcamp-Gaza-Fundraisers—Distant-Reading-and-Visualisation/blob/main/genre%20updated.py  

• Sentiment Analysis of Bandcamp Fundraiser Supporters’ Comments: https://github.com/HanaIrs91/Bandcamp-Gaza-Fundraisers—Distant-Reading-and-Visualisation/blob/main/Sentiment%20analysis%20-%20Final.py  

• Words Associated with Palestinians: https://github.com/HanaIrs91/Bandcamp-Gaza-Fundraisers—Distant-Reading-and-Visualisation/blob/main/words%20associated%20with%20Palestinians.py  

Appendix 3: Github Repository of the Research Project 

https://github.com/HanaIrs91/Bandcamp-Gaza-Fundraisers—Distant-Reading-and-Visualisation

By Zahra Abdi

Introduction
At the start of the 20th century, the impact of war, economic crises, colonial competition, and skepticism about progress led many artists to move away from content-driven art and embrace formalism, sparking the rise of modern art. By the 1920s, however, avant-garde artists renewed their interest in socially engaged art, which is essential in addressing the era’s socio-political challenges (Scheunemann, 2005; Clark, 1997). In the 1920s and 1930s, artists addressed issues like poverty, housing, war, executions, and workers’ strikes. However, as the economy improved and the art market grew, the question of art’s autonomy led to a divide between art and life (Roberts, 2014). Modern art, with its formalist focus, dominated the art world until the postmodern era. In postmodernism, art shifted back to social discourse. After 1960 in France, a rebellion against consumerism sparked critical art, and by the 1980s, figurative painting became a platform for addressing social issues. Social movements, feminism, and themes of gender, race, and identity then became central to cultural studies and artistic works (Smythe, 2015).

This research aims to answer the key question of how the discourse of socially committed art evolved within Western art during the 20th century, shaped by historical developments. It also seeks how this art is commodified in a capitalist society. The objective of this research is to examine how socially committed art—as a tool for resistance and social critique—has evolved in its expression and purpose, and to analyze how capitalist systems transform this critical art into consumable products, often stripping away its oppositional potential. To address this, the research adopts a descriptive-analytical method, beginning with a review of the trajectory of socially committed art during two first decades of the 20th century, extending through the rest of the century and into postmodernism, then applying Theodor Adorno and Horkheimer’s theory of the Culture Industry to explore how capitalism affects art and culture.

Socially committed art in the first two decades of the 20th century
To fully grasp 20th-century art and the development of modernism, it is essential to contextualize them within the broader political, social, and technological changes of the time¹ (Berlin, 1997). At the beginning of the century, many Europeans and Americans were imbued with an optimistic belief in societal progress, driven by the expansion of democracy, capitalism, innovation, and technology (Marx & Mazlish, 1996). However, the competitive nature of colonialism and capitalism introduced deep instability within Europe and its political allies, ultimately leading to widespread skepticism regarding the notion of progress. The concept of progress posits that history unfolds as a continuous process of improvement, with all societies contributing to a collective evolutionary trajectory. According to this framework, if one perceives history as a definitive path toward advancement, Western civilization becomes positioned as the apex of this developmental pathway (Castoriadis & Murphy, 1985). Hegel, in his metaphysical narrative, proposed that the driving force of history lies in the birth and evolution of ideological maturity. He argued that this ideological shift occurs when a new idea emerges within the confines of an established one, eventually superseding it. In his philosophy of history, Hegel maintained that any reflective individual analyzing historical events must accept that suffering is an integral part of progress, thus embedding the concept of colonialism within the broader framework of historical advancement (McLangy, 2024).

In the latter half of the 19th century, the notion of an organic society diminished, and conflict came to be seen as the foundation of life in industrialized Western society. This view was reflected by Marx and Engels in the early Communist Manifesto, which can be seen as a seminal modernist statement advocating a radical break from the past. Modernist writers and artists were influenced by this perspective, striving to depict the alienation of urban life. The shift toward abstraction in avant-garde art is also interpreted as a reflection of this social alienation² (Childs, 2017). The incorporation of Marxist ideas into 20th-century art, prior to the Russian Revolution, led to the creation of movements like Futurism and Constructivism, where machine played a central role. This often led to the development of abstract expressions. These artists created a significant break from traditional art forms, embracing avant-garde techniques to merge industry and production with art. By defamiliarizing common processes, they aimed to elevate critical cultural awareness (Versari, 2009). In addition to philosophical influences, the rise of avant-garde art movements was closely tied to the events surrounding World War I (Cárcel, 2023). The outbreak of the war in 1914 drastically altered global dynamics. Prior to the conflict, collaboration among European artists was widely accepted, but the war’s onset and divergent views on it caused these relationships to collapse, ushering in a new phase of European art. During this period, many artists, either voluntarily or due to obligation, joined the front lines, with some subsequently glorifying war while others strongly opposed it (Becker, 2020). It seems that the glorification of war by avant-garde artists stemmed more from their anti-bourgeois stance than from any commitment to patriotism. This avant-garde viewpoint aimed to destruction of all systems influenced by the bourgeoisie. Among European avant-garde groups, the Italian Futurists, led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, were the most captivated by war (Storchi, 2015).

The first Futurist manifesto, issued by Marinetti in 1908, declared that only by becoming free of the stinking gangrene of… “professors, archaeologists, touring guides, and antique dealers” only by burning libraries and flooding museums, could Italy save itself. The new world of speed and technology required a new language of forms derived not from the past but from the future. A second manifesto declared that by denying its past could art correspond to the intellectual needs of our time. Tradition was reactionary, Modernism alone was revolutionary and progressive (Gablik, 2004).

These artists displayed a fragmented chaos that represented the 20th century—a century that was increasingly and technologically undergoing transformation (Salter, 2010). For the Futurists, war was viewed as an inspiring, progressive, and even beautiful phenomenon. However, this fascination was not universally shared among artists; for some, enthusiasm was replaced by profound hatred. In France, André Breton, who would later lead the Surrealist movement, expressed his reluctance toward the glorification of war, while artists such as Marcel Duchamp distanced themselves by leaving their homeland (Re, 2004). By mid-1915, the violence, suffering, and perceived futility of the war compelled many pro-war artists to reevaluate their positions. They sought to use their art to denounce and critique the war. In post-World War I Europe, the anxiety stemming from the conflict prompted some artists to memorialize the victims, not to celebrate military heroism, but to condemn the political underpinnings of war and the prevailing culture of forgetting (Cork, 1995).

Amid World War I (1916), the Dada movement emerged with its revolutionary critique of war and bourgeois society, followed by Surrealism in 1924, which embraced an anti-war stance (Rubin, 1968). By the 1920s, the postwar generation of Dadaists had grown increasingly skeptical of society’s mercenary nature. The catastrophic consequences of the war had shattered any remaining faith in a rational and peaceful future. In their view, a civilization that tolerated such atrocities was unworthy of art’s consolations, having lost its legitimacy. Consequently, the public was confronted with meaningless, aggressively absurd object (Gablik, 2004). Avant-garde modernism emerged as an artistic movement protesting the existing social order while seeking individual freedom. The war’s catastrophic effects shattered faith in progress and disillusioned artists with past ideologies, leading them to embrace absurdity. Dadaist and Surrealist artists aimed to dismantle established patterns, yet the disharmony and fragmentation of their works mirrored individuals’ loss of control and societal harmony (Childs, 2017). This loss of centrality once again led artists to reconsider the relationship between art and society from a new perspective.

Socially committed art from 1920 to postmodernism
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the presence of humans, either as a source of evil or as an oppressed and threatened identity, became increasingly prominent in artworks³ (Wosk, 1986).

Even though the social thought and function of art around the 1880s gradually gave way to a phase of avant-gardism, which remained influential until about 1920⁴, but during that period, the intensification of art’s autonomy through the aesthetic movement facilitated the avant-garde’s recognition of the inherent lack of social impact in autonomous art. As a logical consequence, there emerged a concerted effort to reintegrate art into the domain of social action. The fundamental transformation that arose from the transition from aestheticism to the avant-garde movement was rooted in art’s awareness of its role within bourgeois society—or, more precisely, its comprehension of its own social standing. Avant-garde artists believed that the integration of art into life was possible, provided they created unfinished works that remained open to audience reactions. This approach began its activities in 1920s⁵, when streets replaced galleries as venues for artistic expression, emphasizing the connection between life and art more than ever before (Burger, 1984). Alongside radical movements, the resurgence of realism in post-war European painting cannot be overlooked. The psychological impact of the war fostered a revival of realism, as artists, driven by a heightened sense of responsibility, became more attuned to their social and human obligations, seeking to contribute to the betterment of society (Lucie-Smith, 2020).

The formation of social realism in the 1920s and 1930s was inspired by the belief that art could serve as a weapon to combat the exploitation of workers under capitalism and halt the rise of international fascism (Whitfield, 2022). The painful experience of war drove German artists such as Max Beckmann and Käthe Kollwitz to create works with themes of war, suffering, and grief. However, while Kollwitz’s work can be considered part of social realism, Max Beckmann is associated with Neue Sachlichkeit. The ‘New Objectivity’ movement, which emerged in the 1920s, was an artistic response to the war and the political and social upheaval of the Weimar Republic, often characterized by a critical, detached, and sometimes satirical portrayal of contemporary life and politics in Germany (Pound, 2018). In addition to European art, American art during this period exemplified the return of art to social action. The Harlem Renaissance, which unfolded between the end of World War I and the mid-1930s, marked significant cultural, social, and artistic transformations in Harlem. Although initially driven by a literary movement led by writers and poets, this period gradually attracted artists, photographers, and musicians, establishing Harlem as a cultural hub. The Harlem Renaissance revitalized Black pride and contributed to changing perceptions of African Americans and their roles within the cultural framework of the United States (Stephens, 2006). According to Art Hazelwood, citing Gorky⁶, despite the significant socio-political movement in the art world, the powerful political art of the 1930s was sidelined. During this time, elitism reemerged with the economic recovery and the decline of the Great Depression. Many curators, gallery owners, and artists participated in this pronounced shift away from political art, which had previously symbolized solidarity among artists in the 1930s. Economic improvement, evolving artistic practices, the revitalized commercial art market, fatigue from political engagement, and a sense of futility surrounding political art were all noted as reasons for the decline of political art (Hazelwood, 2017).

The return of art to social commitment: Postmodernism
Postmodernism presents both opportunities for the resurgence and expansion of cultural politics and the risk of its neutralization. A significant focus of postmodern aesthetic theory is the rejection of the modernist distinction between art and other social activities. It seeks to reclaim the suppressed political dimensions inherent in aesthetic and cultural practices. As culture permeates all areas of life, there is a growing aestheticization of social, political, and economic spheres (Connor , 1989). The resurgence of political and social consciousness, along with the re-engagement of art in political discourse, was most prominently visible in France. In 1960s France, a rebellion against consumerist society emerged at a time when art was often seen merely as entertainment. This upheaval provided a renewed platform for critical art. Although abstract painting dominated the artistic landscape and gained significant traction in educational institutions, the resistance to mainstream art forms led artists to incorporate everyday objects, including discarded materials, into their work. This shift positioned them as commentators on social movements, reflecting broader critiques of contemporary culture (Foster, et al., 2005).

With the ongoing production of socially themed artworks, a new vitality emerged in painting from the early 1980s. This revival followed the marked isolation and unprecedented withdrawal that the medium had experienced during the 1960s and 1970s in response to innovative experiments beyond the traditional canvas framework. Notably, this renewed energy in painting was expressed not through abstraction, but primarily through figurative art (Cork, 2002). During this period, it is noteworthy that Marxist and socialist interpretations of art, which gained significant influence after World War I, contributed to the emergence of a movement known as the social history of art by the mid-20th century. This movement emphasized the reciprocal relationship between society and art. Over time, Marxist art history evolved into social art history, integrating with competing methodologies such as feminism, psychoanalysis, and studies of gender and race. This shift resulted in a diverse and interdisciplinary body of work, often referred to as “modern art history. Simultaneously, approaches associated with “cultural studies” increasingly gained prominence within the realm of sociological art studies (Doy, 1998). Alongside the expansion of social art studies, a wave of global artistic events emerged, spotlighting artists of diverse nationalities, ethnicities, and cultures who had been overlooked for years. Moreover, the rise of multiculturalism coincided with the end of the Cold War, exemplified by two exhibitions that challenged the institutional dominance of white artists in Paris and London (Stallabrass , 2006).

One of these two exhibitions was “Magicians of the Earth⁷” at the Georges Pompidou Center. This event was pivotal in decentralizing the main cultural and artistic hubs of the world and distributing art across international centers. Selecting half of the works from Asian and African countries, aimed to present a more global discourse on art, integrating local characteristics while fostering dialogue within a broader international context. During this time, new artistic movements with social objectives emerged. Conceptual and thematic art, which gained prominence in the late 20th century, transformed aesthetic perceptions and accompanied art with a form of aggressive ethics. However, the radical advancement of new artistic expressions faced significant resistance both within and beyond the art world, prompting many artists to redefine art in a figurative space. During this period, there was a widespread effort to address social issues, focusing on inequalities related to class, race, gender, and ethnicity, especially for those facing discrimination, violence, exploitation, or invisibility. What was once a marginal issue in the modern era became central in postmodernism. The emphasis shifted towards exposing both overt and hidden forms of discrimination, reshaping social images becoming a dominant approach in contemporary art.

Commodification of socially committed art
Adorno and Horkheimer’s theory of the Culture Industry indicates how cultural products, initially created for expression and intellectual development, are commodified and mass-produced for capitalist markets (Horkheimer & Adorno, 2012). Culture and capitalism have been deeply intertwined since the Industrial Revolution, leading to the separation of culture from everyday life. This separation resulted in an undemocratic culture, where art and culture became commodities (Childs, 2017). Commodification refers to the process through which symbolic forms—cultural products with significant intellectual, aesthetic, or emotional content—are produced, distributed, and consumed as commodities within capitalist systems (Scott, 2011). These products, which may serve as tools for entertainment, communication, or social positioning, are transformed into goods for profit within market exchanges which is one of the main concerns of culture industry theory (Scott, 2011; Horkheimer & Adorno, 2012). In the context of art, commodification refers to the process by which creativity, or any form of expression is transformed into a marketable product, valued primarily for its potential to generate profit, rather than for its intrinsic or affective qualities (Anonymous, 2017). The profit derived from exclusive control over unique, non-replicable resources—such as a work of art— is referred to as monopoly rent, which can extract value from it by capitalizing on its uniqueness as discussed by Harvey (2001). Capitalism seeks to appropriate local differences, cultural variations, and aesthetic meanings to generate monopoly rents leading to the commodification of cultural products, often at the expense of their original authenticity and political meaning. Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno argue that art has the power to disrupt capitalist ideologies as it serves as a bearer of truth by revealing hidden social and historical truths often obscured by dominant power structures. However, they stress that art’s autonomy—its ability to remain independent of market or political pressures—is fragile. Autonomous art retains its critical edge, but when absorbed by the creative industries and commodified, it risks losing this independence and its capacity for critique (Lijster, 2017). Art can also criticize capitalism and its effects, offering a platform for resistance. Malik (2008) argues that the art market uses critique as a moral justification to appear distinct from overtly commercial practices, yet both primary and secondary markets ultimately reinforce capitalist accumulation. The values of “artist critique”—creativity, autonomy, and resistance to commodification—have been co-opted by neoliberal management. These values, once used to challenge capitalism, are now integrated into its operations, making critique part of the system and weakening its oppositional power (Chiapello, 2004).

The paradox of socially committed art lies in the fact that, while it seeks to challenge and critique the very systems of oppression and commodification inherent in capitalism, it is not immune to the forces of commodification itself. Activist art, a form of socially and politically engaged art that aims to provoke change by raising awareness about injustices, encouraging dialogue, and mobilizing communities for social action (Gupta, 2021; Himada, 2014), is the prime example of this contradiction. This form of art transcends mere aesthetic appeal, using emotion (affect) and strategy (effect) to foster a deeper understanding of systemic issues and catalyze social transformation (Gupta, 2021; Sholette, 1998). Although activist art challenge societal norms, criticize power structures, and address issues such as racism, gender inequality, environmental degradation, and human rights violations (Hackney, 2016), yet, like much creative productions, it often finds itself co-opted by the same market forces it critiques. As Lippard (1984) notes activist art can act as a Trojan horse, appearing within the structures of the art world but containing subversive messages aimed at disrupting power structures. However, when this form of art is commodified, its critical edge can be dulled, turning a tool for resistance into a marketable product for public consumption. The commodification of art, especially within the context of public spaces or cultural institutions, raises questions about the authenticity of its message and the ability of such works to maintain their political impact. Street art as a type of activist art, once a form of urban resistance and critique, has also been co-opted into the very capitalist frameworks. This transformation of public art into a tool for urban branding reflects the idea of co-optation in a broader trend of “creative city” paradigms (Pavoni, 2019), where this aesthetics are incorporated into mainstream advertising, tourist attraction, and increasing property values. What began as a form of cultural opposition to the urban decay and marginalization has been turned into a commercial product that facilitates gentrification processes while maintaining structural inequalities by excluding residents from decision-making and alienating them(Raposo, 2023; Ian Ross, et al., 2020).

On the other hand, the sense of alienation felt by people or communities in this system, resulting from commodification, can lead to resentment and opposition toward the capitalist system. This aligns with Adorno’s concept of negative dialectics, where alienation creates the possibility for resistance, even within systems of oppression (Sherman, 2016). Besides, considering capitalism needs cultural differences and their uniqueness to generate monopoly rents and maintain the illusion of authenticity, this can create openings for resistance. Alternative forms of cultural production and political organization are another form of resistance to commodification. Socialist movements and other radical political forces can use culture as a tool for opposition, reclaiming creativity and authenticity from capitalist exploitation. By focusing on collective empowerment and redirecting cultural production toward social and communal values rather than profit, these movements can challenge the dominance of capitalism while preserving cultural uniqueness (Harvey, 2001). Serafini believes community-centered art practices as resistance for this commodification. She draws on Herbert Read’s essay “To Hell with Culture” (1941), where Read critiques how capitalist systems commodify art and hinder the democratization of culture. She argues by engaging people in radical politics and social change rather than institutions through community centered art we can maintain art’s autonomy and preserve its critical potential outside the constraints of institutionalization and market pressures (Serafini, 2015). Adorno’s concept of autonomy in art, which emphasizes its separation from market logic, can be also seen here as another model for preserving the integrity of socially committed art. Read advocates for a radical shift towards a democratic model of cultural production. He argues that under capitalism, art is produced primarily for profit, leading to an elitist and undemocratic culture that is disconnected from the everyday lives of people. To counter this, it should be a system where all production is for use, not for profit, with an emphasis on function and fulfillment as the defining qualities of art, rather than its marketability. He calls for the collective ownership and control of the means of production, including artistic industries, ensuring that cultural output serves the common good rather than capitalist interests. Furthermore, Read envisions a society where art is fully integrated into everyday life, breaking down the separation between culture and work that was caused by the Industrial Revolution. In this model, artists are no longer isolated as unique geniuses but are part of a collective workforce, contributing to the democratic and functional culture that serves society as a whole (Child, 2015).

In conclusion, the commodification of socially committed art under capitalism poses a paradox: while this art form seeks to challenge and critique oppressive systems, it often becomes absorbed into the very market forces it opposes. As critical art is transformed into consumable products, its oppositional potential is frequently diluted, turning acts of resistance into marketable commodities. However, opportunities for resistance remain, as artists and communities continue to explore alternative models of cultural production that preserve the integrity of socially engaged art and challenge its commodification within capitalist frameworks.

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Footnotes

1. In his article The Pursuit of the Ideal, Berlin identifies two significant factors in shaping the history of humanity in the 20th century: the active influence of science and technology, and the profound ideological upheavals that emerged. Events such as the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, totalitarian regimes (both left and right), surges of nationalism, racism, religious fanaticism, etc (Berlin, 2018) ↩︎
2. Lynton describes modern art as if “there was no design, no composition, and no way for the viewer to know what to admire, let alone what to think about. It seemingly lacked any content (Lynton, 1980). ↩︎
3. At the end of the 19th century, in the works of artists such as James Ensor (1860–1949), Edvard Munch (1863–1944), and Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901), there was no longer any trace of the tranquility and brightness found in classical works or the vibrancy of life depicted in realism. Instead, there are faces of distorted humanity, beings devoid of identity, and purely anguished visages; these faces symbolize the sickly and pessimistic spirit of suffering and corrupted humanity. ↩︎
4. The avant-garde timeline should extend back to the 1830s, tracing its roots to l’art pour l’art. This shift highlights that the avant-garde was not only a rejection but also a continuation of l’art pour l’art (Singsen, 2020). ↩︎
5. It is also known as radical avant-garde (GAIE, 2021). ↩︎
6. Arshile Gorky, poor art for poor people ↩︎
7. Magiciens de la Terre, a contemporary art exhibit from 18 May to 14 August 1989. ↩︎