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"What all these strategies do have in common is the underlying question: does it help? Can art play a role in a political struggle? The answer is yes. In fact, this year is an anniversary year in that regard. In 1974, 50 years ago, Portugal was suffering under a dictatorship when it entered the Eurovision Song Contest with “E depois do adeus,” a sensitive love song. That became, just under three weeks after the Song Contest, a secret starting signal for the Carnation Revolution: officers heard it on the radio, revolted, and took power with a nonviolent coup. Thus the dictatorship fell.
This is what Lovesong Revolution, a sound artwork by Urok Shirhan, is about. It can be heard this summer in the group exhibition A Loud Voice Never Dies, in an old gym in Charlois, Rotterdam-Zuid. This district has an activist past, when in the 1930s Red Rotterdam stirred and political slogans appeared on facades and rooftops. That history is cited in this exhibition by collective P1 as the start of a partly historical investigation into how art can give politics a voice. 'E depois do adeus' was given a glorious role, but not in every respect: at the Song Contest, the song came in last place. The winner, nota bene, was a song referring to a military defeat: Waterloo, by Abba.
History contains plenty of inspiring examples, but also unanswered questions. We will never know if Bakunin was right. He could not convince his comrades-in-arms in Dresden to employ art, and the Prussians took the city. A century later, his thinking got kind of right: the U.S. wanted to spare the cultural heritage of Tokyo and Kyoto and bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
How the Amsterdam ME would have acted, we do not know. Öğüt's installation remains at the Stedelijk, safely on display. However, the museum is organizing a program of talks around it this fall, keeping the discussion open."
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Exhibitions: Öğüt's installation is on display at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam until early 2025. The public program is announced on stedelijk.nl. A Loud Voice Never Dies, through Oct. 27 at De Sportschool Rotterdam. Sundays 14-17h.
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Sandra Smets for NRC Handelsblad, published 22 july 2024
For the complete artyicle in Dutch read