The relationship between art and politics during dictatorial regimes is both contested and fraught, despite many academic and artistic attempts to disentangle this issue. At the same time, facing modern dictatorships' impact on cultural production and producers is not without political and theoretical weight.

Dictators have historically had a taste for the gaudy and obvious because of this dual functioning of their art as propaganda and as an actual exercise of control. The purpose of the dictator's art project is generally two-sided — to destroy and stop the production of dissident art and to control the creation of an art favorable to the regime.