(author of the essay here) I agree bodypainting can be garish (one of the reasons I no longer do it!), but the reason all those pieces were political is that every year the championships have a theme and that competition on that day the theme was literally 'propaganda'--so that was the theme the artists had to work with. Other years the theme is very different--I competed in years where the themes were rebirth, evolution, sources of power, transformation etc--idk I can't remember exactly, but they were generally set months in advance.