Artspeaking topic
Comedians and musicians keep taking huge paychecks to perform in authoritarian countries. Can an artist separate their work from the regime paying for it?
— r/changemyview
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- How does Munch's 'The Scream' come to symbolize modern anxiety? Let's talk about the meaning of the red sky and the undulating forms.
- Michelangelo used to say he did not make the sculpture; it was already inside the marble, and he merely removed the excess. Creating may be not adding but taking away. Is deleting the unnecessary sometimes all it takes to bring something into being?
- When something is very beautiful, a strange sadness rises in us; we cry for no reason. Why does the most beautiful moment also feel like a loss? Why is beauty a cousin of longing rather than of happiness?
- Commentary channels thrive entirely on other people's work, whether criticism is a creative art form or sophisticated parasitism.
- Famous paintings are usually far smaller than we expect; the Mona Lisa is about the size of a magazine cover. The 'bigness' in our heads is not physical but narrative. Why can a thing's value be so unrelated to its size?