Martorell disagreed with the political policies and actions of the current administration and felt that he could not and would not lend his support to that administration by leaving his art there.  By removing his art he sends a clear statement that the policies are unacceptable to him. Would leaving his art there have implied that he agreed with those policies? Was it a sort of way to punish the government? Was his action some kind of publicity stunt? I personally have no idea but I love the thought of it. How important is the role I play as an artist in society? Hypothetically if I (and all artists) decided to remove my(our) art from society to make a point or even just to punish society for it's behavior, would that truly have an effect at all on society? How important is the role that art plays in society? I don’t mean just the visual arts either, since, at least in Latin countries, there is a long standing tradition of political music and writing. What would happen if all of that disappeared and all that was left was essentially cultural spam?

I have to say I agree with Martorell’s decision to remove his art although I have to wonder at his timing. The present administration of Puerto Rico has been working to remove funding from many cultural institutions, including the Escuela de Artes Plasticas, the only art university in Puerto Rico, but the protests for this were over a year ago. Timing is everything when it comes to protesting so I wonder what exactly his reasoning was for doing this now (please note that I do not have as much info about what is going on in Puerto Rico as I would like so there may be something else going on politically). And for all I agree with protesting I have to wonder if his art has been completely removed from the public eye or if it has simply been transferred to a more positive environment. After some thought I have come to the conclusion that removing art as a sort of punishment may result in a cultural “dumbing down” that will leave only the detritus of the art world.