Politik och ideologi i samtidskonsten - Rondellhundsdebatten 2007

The purpose of the thesis is to examine the relation between art, politics and ideology in contemporary art, focusing on the drawings depicting Mohammed the prophet as a dog, made by the Swedish artist Lars Vilks. His work is contextual in accordance with current art practice, thus letting everything related to the artwork become part of it, a circumstance the thesis tries to grasp in the widest respect possible. The drawings were published and spread throughout Swedish media, where they were later defended and criticized by a number of writers. Many debaters argued that the art work represents Western freedom of speech, and that to criticize them is to criticize fundamental democratic rights. This discourse tended to disqualify all arguments that questioned why such force was put into defending and spreading offensive pictures. The freedom of speech argument got a central position and much of the debate got stuck in confirming its value rather than discussing the meaning of the work. The thesis shows that the use of democratic freedoms as a tool and an argument for rejecting other cultural viewpoints, democratic or not, follows the liberal tradition of thought from the period of the Enlightenment and on. The artist, Lars Vilks is a professor in art theory. The thesis examines his view on contemporary art and his argument that works of art exist in a special discourse – the Art World, even if it affects millions of people in their everyday lives, and even if the effects of the art work is comparable to a successful islamofobic campaign. The analysis of the context also takes into account that this took place in Sweden, a country which already has significant problems with discrimination of Muslims. The art work can therefore be seen as a potent political tool, which becomes elusive due to its status as art