how art can gives shape to change

The work of art I've choose is a black and white photograph.
 It appears when Thelma Golden is talking about the works of art currently realized by young black artists, and this genration's capacity to bring us to a particular energy. It represents a head shaved. On the skull of the person, the Nike Company's logo is engraved.
On my point of view, many principles are very important in this work of art. First of all, the angle's choice is particular. Indeed, this photograph draw its inspiration from a very classic artistic genre: the portrait. And yet, what is changing in this work of art is the fact to leave only see the back of the skull and the character's neck. It means that the first identifying element of the character, the face, is hidden. I think this choice isn't insignificant. It participate to rub a maximum all the identifying elements of the character.
An other comment reinforces this hypothesis: the skull is shaved. In my conception, according to many cultures across the world, hair is a symbolic part of the human body. Indeed, the color, the length, or the hairstyle participate to determinate the identity of a person in our society.
Why all these choices from the artist?
May be to send a message linked to the Nike Company's logo. I think that this work of art is here to remind us that this company is currently one of the bigger in the world, its products are broadcoast around the whole world, all of that in a context of globalization and so, standardization of our behaviours, cultures and identities. I interprète this work of art as an alarm, necessary not to forget the kind of society in which we are living and its rules.
When Thelma Golden says that artists are catalysts for change and not only content providers, I totally agree with her. In my conception ever explained in the last article I've published on my blog, the real change, the "global revolution" will come when people will realize that they aren't isolated, that the power to change is in the hands of the collectivity. And Yet, to this, it's necessary to allow the dialogue to exist.
On a material point of view, the first requirement to allow the dialogue is to occupate a space. Museums can be a public space adapted to this kind of reunions. According to the theory of Jürgen Habermas, a public space can be defined as a processus during which a public endowed with reason appropriate the public sphere governed by the authority and transform it in a sphere where criticism against the nation's control can exercise.
Dialogue between citizens has many points of entry. To Thelma Golden, museums can be the perfect places to allow this circulation of ideas.
The second material requirement to obtain the dialogue is the work of art as an object.
Works of art are artistic productions so they must be considered as cultural properties. Like any product in a context of globalization, they can travel across the whole world. According to my last comment on the photograph I've choose to defend after, I think that every kind of art is trying to send significations to its public.
How do images work?
Using some principles or specific technics during their creation, images acquires a power to do people thinking about themselves and each other, or about the society and its way of operating. What it's represented is often what it can be. It's an escape from reality, from the real life, to discover a space governed by imagination.  A space in which all is possible. But the possibilities we can see are determinated by who we are, it always provides from our representations and feelings.
And the final signification keep by the viewer of the work of art is completely personal. It never be exactly the same as an other viewer. It is right cause every signification is depending on the education, the past, the experiences lived by the viewer. And this is the difference between the ways of interpreting the work of art who will give place to the dialogue.
To conclude, we are obliged to admit that artists are first of all content providers cause the processus to allow the change need some material medias as a photograph can be. But they are catalysts for change when their works of art once being broadcoast permit dialogue between people.
Remind us: a work of art is defined as a work of art only when a viewer is watching it. Without a public, art can not be. Without people, change can not come.