How four paintings, WTO/99 and Thunderbolts* helped me reflect on “messages” in art.
“Artists who devote themselves to a public cause doom their work to be obsolescent very quickly.” We were sitting at the breakfast table at my annual 707s writers’ retreat. A fellow writer voiced this perspective, and as I asked him to explain, I started to see the truth in what he said. If you make art about how bad you think the current president is, your art is not going to be very relevant in four years. But at the same time, I like art that means something. I went back to my alma mater this week for just that: a documentary film festival where they were showing the documentary WTO/99 (2025), about the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization. I guess I do like political art! But I was hoping for a documentary that would make me think without telling me what to think.
I was thinking about this as I entered the Student Union. I wanted to work for a few hours before the documentary. As I found my spot to set my laptop down, an absurd painting on the wall caught my eye:
I was bemused and confused. So I looked closer, and as I read the title of the painting, it began to make sense: “Recent Research Reveals Location of World’s Largest Fastest Food Chain."
It’s true: too often scholarly research just serves the purposes of big businesses that fund it, particularly in the sciences. For example, when General Motors funds an ongoing lab project in Mechanical Engineering to improve their product, or when a pharmaceutical company has the Chemistry graduate students test a new drug. I get the painting, but it’s a little depressing, in a one-sided sort of way: Academics is slanted, our joy is empty, and McDonald’s rules.
Shortly thereafter, I noticed another artwork on the same wall, this time a series of nine photographs:
The dollar-bill caterpillar turns into a cocoon and finally emerges as a butterfly: a receipt from CVS! It’s creative on multiple levels. But the more I observed it, the less inspired I felt. The thrill of beauty at this creative rendering of life gives way to a “got-cha!” punch line. All our money just flies away, and again, big capitalism is the villain. Rather than finding beauty in life, this art is at best another cautionary tale about . . . “the system.”
As I went to the drinking fountain between work sessions, I noticed these on the same wall:
These two portraits in pencil lovingly render two black figures. We feel that we catch them in their everyday life, in an everyday attitude. At least one may have a little attitude, too. But most of all, the work exudes the simple beauty of complex human figures in equally simple and skilled artistry. I said to myself, “That’s more like it.”
Later, I noticed a final set of paintings on the very same wall. Oddly, I had just walked by these the first time:
These two portraits in pencil lovingly render two black figures. We feel that we catch them in their everyday life, in an everyday attitude. At least one may have a little attitude, too. But most of all, the work exudes the simple beauty of complex human figures in equally simple and skilled artistry. I said to myself, “That’s more like it.”
Later, I noticed a final set of paintings on the very same wall. Oddly, I had just walked by these the first time:
In her artist statement, the painter expresses her appreciation for being allowed to closely observe the construction of this very building I was standing in. I am struck by the detailed and popping color rendering of these architectural volumes. As much as I like art to mean something, here beauty speaks volumes without words, and without any “message” at all. It is just the beauty of everyday life, of human creativity, and of nonhuman building materials that somehow speak for themselves.
Then I understood. Art doesn’t have to tell you what to think in order to mean something. It just has to be true to life, and to the beauty of life. I saw this as I was working and a 3- or 4-year-old walked by the receipt “butterfly” photograph. She halted for two seconds to look at it, put her hand on it, and then kept going. She had recognized the beauty of that form, of the life she loved, without understanding anything about the CVS receipt it was made of. I don’t want art that just tells me to feel bad about the world. I want art that shows goodness and, by extension, a path to get there. The image of God in these human figures; the concrete vibrancy of a building-in-process; here is beauty, not in a message, but gently meaningful.
So when I watched WTO/99, I was pleased to find it doing the same thing. It didn’t tell me what to think. Instead, it got into a lot of different people’s heads, without glorifying or demonizing any of them. It was open-ended enough for the viewer to see the situation from all sides and judge it for myself, to dialogue with it even after I left the theater. And it was so masterfully put together that it kindled that spark of creativity in me: I just want to make whatever beautiful thing I can. Because we don’t need another message: we need wonder, and to sense that we’re a part of it.
That evening, my hosts and I watched Marvel’s Thunderbolts* (2025)—a very different movie experience! I felt that the film’s politics was intentionally vague—an important difference from being open-ended. But then, in the second half, this film took a turn toward moral-relational-emotional meaning—about shame and social support—that impressed me. It was direct, maybe even a “message” . . . but for this topic, that was okay.
So here’s my working theory: art about politics needs to present real perspectives without mistaking any of them for a perfect cure-all; juxtaposing political perspectives well can reveal the unequal faults and strengths among them and leave room for the viewer’s own perspective. In contrast, art about spiritual and emotional well-being can have a “message” mixed in with the beauty and speak directly to our souls—because unlike ever-shifting politics, there really is just one Way of Love.
This is not my typical “recommendation,” as both movies are made for specialized audiences: 1) people who like documentaries about world events and 2) Marvel followers. At any rate, for sensitive viewers: Both of these films feature intense (bloodless) violence and strong language.
