Of course art (and gardening) can be political, it's just better when it isn't

Gardening bloke James Wong was again trolling the Twiterati by saying that gardening (more specifically British gardening) has "racism in its DNA". All this came in response to another Tweet from Ed Wall who is the head of Landscape Architecture Urbanism at the University of Greenwich:

Gardens are denied their political agency because they too often reveal uncomfortable politics of individual ownership, spatial inequity, & unsustainable practices. There needs to be more honest conversations about gardens in the UK!

I'm not going to get into the issues James Wong raises except to say that I'm sure he's right about non-white people facing racism within the gardening world - it would be a miracle if that world was, unlike everywhere else, without any racism. I'm also sure that the use of terms like 'native' and 'heritage' are not indications of racism even if they sometimes point to a degree of ignorance about just how few of the everyday plants in our gardens are native. And there's also a slightly jingoistic tendency in British gardening to believe that, somehow, we're the only people who do gardens well.

The thing is that Wong frames the argument from the perspective of the elite gardening world - the designers, plant experts, and gardening gurus - not the everyday world of the average person's little garden. Gardening is 'art', and like other art, Wong thinks, should be infused - is inevitably infused - with politics:

About five years ago, I was admiring one of my favourite conceptual gardens at the Hampton Court flower show. Among a collection of avant garde horticultural installations was a design inspired by the issues facing displaced peoples around the world. In the 10 minutes I stood there, before being dragged away with work, I overheard at least half a dozen visitors decrying it, not for its planting, hardscape design, or use or colour or form, but because of the perceived importance of “keeping politics out of gardening”.

Again I didn't see this garden but I was struck by what Wong overheard and that, he says, "...would anyone have ever made a statement like that in an art gallery? After stepping out of the theatre or a film screening? Going to a concert?"

The answer to Wong's questions, in every case, is 'yes'. Lots of ordinary people who visit these arts events come away pleased with the art but muttering about "keeping the politics out". What these people object to isn't really politics but a sort of artistic preachiness, to the idea that art's job isn't to please or excite but rather to shock, disturb and upset. So much of the 'politics' presented by artist is simplistic, sloganised and lacking in any depth or analysis. It is not intended to inform or educate but to signal the artists adopted righeousness, an adoption made easier when the artist doesn't really challenge recieved thinking but simply apes what Kristian Niemietz calls "high status opinion".

These opinions are reflected in Ed Wall's Tweet too - "...uncomfortable politics of individual ownership, spatial inequity, & unsustainable practices..." speaks to the central conceit of easy progressive politics, of those 'high status opinions. Gardens are political - people own land, some people don't, and anyway the climate emergency. You only need to add something about neoliberalism to arrive at a distillation of modern progressivism, especially when you add Wong's contention that it's all racist anyway. And that people who say "keep politics out of gardening" are obviously low status and probably racist.

Too much of the politics in art is levered in there to grab attention and adds little to the art itself. Yet artists, designers and writers are now taught that without a 'message', without that infusion of politics, their work is less good, less important and probably less valuable (to the high status elite who troop through the doors of state subsidised galleries, theatre and music). Gardening remains more inclusive, a genuinely middle class pursuit more typified by hints about how to grow things, how to lay out a garden and going "wow" at beautiful flowers, trees and foliage. Until recently the garden shows reflected this simplicity with the displays showcasing the use of materials, creative planting and great husbandry. Wong's favourite garden begins to change this by making the art of garden design about a message rather than a celebration of craft. Just as with elite theatre and the visual arts the garden designer is now expected to impress the high status viewer with their political message, something that brings out the "why are they so political" response from many of the regular visitors to the flower show.

We're going to see the same divide emerge in the horticultural world as we see elsewhere in the arts - the great and feted elite parading indulgent and safe progressive politcal messages while the old audience drifts away to places that see the art as being about beauty, craft and imagination not ramming a one-eyed political agenda down peoples' throats.

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