Why do dictators hate art?

This graffiti issue reminded me of school number 304, which was built near our house in Kurdakhani and is still unused. The picture above the school in the photo was not there before. A day before Ilham Aliyev came to the opening, the initial picture there – Mirza Alakbar Sabir, Khurshidbanu Natavan, etc. The work, which was a collage of paintings by personalities like The president probably didn’t like it.

In general, we ignore topics such as aesthetics, but authoritarian states come down hard on such things, and this is not a coincidence. Because for them, aesthetics is the subtlest, deepest form of manifestation of power. Body, wall, public space, clothing, painting, all these are on the control map of the authoritarian system.

Take Nazi Germany. Hitler himself wanted to be an artist and was twice rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Some joke about this fact. But think how much historical irony that rejection carries: the man who received rejection from art itself, ten years later began to dictate the aesthetics of an entire continent. "Degenerate art" (Degenerate Art) exhibition opened in Munich in 1937. The goal was to subject modernism, abstract art, expressionism, i.e. everything that the state could not understand and control, to public shame. At the same time, in the same city, official "German art" demonstration was held. Orderly, heroic and Aryan art.

The Soviet Union chose the path of appropriation instead of prohibition. In the 1930s, a state aesthetic was created under Stalin’s direct orders. Art, literature, architecture all "will be understood by the people and will serve the party" formatted. These currents, such as avant-garde, constructivism, and futurism, which flourished in the first years of Soviet power, were gradually suppressed. People like Mayakovsky, Meyerhold, Shostakovich all clashed with the system to varying degrees. Because art, how can I say it, "raw" (spontaneous?) energy, its decentralized, unplanned, unsanctioned nature is what a totalitarian system finds most difficult to digest.

Let’s move on to modern examples. Turkmenistan is one of the most closed regimes in the world, but there they seriously deal with the politics of aesthetics. Hair styles are adjusted. Black cars were banned for a while because white was the favorite color of Turkmenbashi, and the roads leading to the capital had to be full of white cars. We see it as absurd, but it is considered a system there. I’m not talking about North Korea at all.

Now let’s look at the common logic of all these examples. For an authoritarian state, the public space is its body. The wall is his skin. And touching that skin without permission, regardless of its content, is an act of rebellion. The goal of the youth who painted the graffiti was not political. But whether it is or not, it does not matter: the system reads it as a challenge to the authorities. Therefore, the reaction always rises to the degree of NATIONAL GRACE. A criminal case is opened against a simple stain of paint, statements of deputies are issued, it is on the agenda of the national press. Because the issue is not graffiti. The issue is uncontrolled space. It is an uncontrolled expression. The moment of painting graffiti is a moment without the handprint of the state, and the authoritarian system does not forgive such moments.