Art & Politics?

[stlukesguild]

Those were fun times.

 

[musket]

They were indeed. There were a lot of very, very smart people there back then. And serious discussions that went way beyond the same old same old bickering about the same old same old topics characteristic of the current version. There were only a few real troublemakers, who we eventually booted. It's actually much worse now, in terms of silly personal vendettas.

 

[brianvds]

Rivera's solution was that artists should focus on public murals, so that everyone could enjoy original art instead of just the small elite who can afford it.

But who owns the wall? And who pays for the paint and for the artist to paint the mural? There's the famous incident of Rivera's mural for the Rockefellers being demolished after the artist insisted on including Marx and Trotsky.

I think his idea was probably that artists get paid a fairly modest wage out of taxes, and the wall is owned by the state. But like many commies, Rivera was very much the hypocrite, and enjoyed the high life.
I always thought Rockefeller was silly to have the mural destroyed. In his place, I would have paid a different artist to simply replace the portraits of Marx and Trotsky (or was it Lenin? I seem to recall it was Lenin) with, say, Adam Smith and myself.

I'm not certain that the contemporary "art stars" are even better than a lot of other artists.

No, indeed, that's the worst of it: many of these art stars are completely lacking in any discernible artistic ability. But even ignoring them. Pick any favorite artist who happens to be making a very good living from his or her art. Chances are the person is making a hundred times as much money as you. Is his art actually a hundred times better?

So it goes in the arts, and often elsewhere. But it also means YOU might be the next one to suddenly start earning out of all proportion. One never knows.

That's the so-called Pareto distribution, and you see it everywhere. Unfair, perhaps, and indeed, there is even something to be said for government to try taking the edge off it, but we must be very careful about extensively interfering in the natural processes. Particularly when our interference takes the form of vandalism.

The problem there is just like that within economics. They argue that the government's job isn't to aid the poor through the redistribution of wealth... and yet they see no problem with assisting the wealthy through tax breaks, etc... I'm not certain that we are seeing the finest art championed by museums and the art media when they are all pandering to the taste of the very wealthy.

Very true: most of our current crop of libertarians are pseudo-libertarians. They want to privatize the profit but socialize the risks, and they are perfectly happy about titanic government expenditure, as long as it is expenditure on whatever will be to their own advantage. I have yet to see any of them ever declining a government bailout every time there is some crisis (usually one they accidentally or even purposely engineered themselves).

Still, I would not be in favor of government setting quotas about how much art you are allowed to sell at which price.

You then need to ask yourself how well such a mindset worked out under Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc...

It seemed to have worked well for those who kept their mouths shut. Those who didn't ended up dead.
Breathtaking cynicism aside, I think there is a difference between a democratically elected government making stupid decisions that impact me negatively and Comrade Stalin murdering millions of his fellow citizens. In any event, it is simply reality that there is little I could do about either.

 

[stlukesguild]

They were indeed. There were a lot of very, very smart people there back then. And serious discussions that went way beyond the same old same old bickering about the same old same old topics characteristic of the current version.

I remember often leaving a comment in the morning before I headed off to school and when I got home from the workday I'd find 6 or 7 new pages of posts!

 

[stlukesguild]

I always thought Rockefeller was silly to have the mural destroyed. In his place, I would have paid a different artist to simply replace the portraits of Marx and Trotsky (or was it Lenin? I seem to recall it was Lenin)...

Yes, it was Lenin. Diego turned on Trotsky... or rather his wife, Frida turned on him as a hard-core Stalinist. There are some strong arguments made for her being involved in Trotsky's murder in Mexico.

ooops... I just read up on the mural. One of Rivera's assistants took extensive photographs of the mural after Diego was paid in full by the Rockefellers and locked out. The artist then painted a copy of the mural at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Trotsky was included in the original mural and the copy... although it was Lenin at the center of the painting.\

When Diego recreated the mural from the Rockefeller Center he had a grudge to pick with John D. Rockefeller Jr. First off, John D. had a puritanical view about alcohol and Diego painted him drinking a cocktail while the unemployed depression-era workers watched from the street outside. Secondly, there is something that resembles the syphilis virus painted next to Rockefeller’s head. It appears that Diego was trying to define Rockefeller’s legacy with these accusations.

The contrast of Russian communism with Western democracy is bleak. The mural contrasts gas masks and bayonets with a Russian May Day worker’s celebration. There is Soviet diversity and inclusion contrasted to New York elitism and unemployment. Diego blamed the first world war on capitalism. Interestingly, Diego spent the entirety of the great war in Europe and even lost a child to cold and hunger that ravaged the continent during the protracted conflict. iego believed that capitalist speculation was to blame for the great depression and that only communism could save the world.

 

[musket]

They were indeed. There were a lot of very, very smart people there back then. And serious discussions that went way beyond the same old same old bickering about the same old same old topics characteristic of the current version.

I remember often leaving a comment in the morning before I headed off to school and when I got home from the workday I'd find 6 or 7 new pages of posts!

Check your conversations.

 

[brianvds]

I always thought Rockefeller was silly to have the mural destroyed. In his place, I would have paid a different artist to simply replace the portraits of Marx and Trotsky (or was it Lenin? I seem to recall it was Lenin)...

Yes, it was Lenin. Diego turned on Trotsky... or rather his wife, Frida turned on him as a hard-core Stalinist. There are some strong arguments made for her being involved in Trotsky's murder in Mexico.

Weren't Frida and Trotsky lovers at one point? Well, who can tell - both she and Diego often had more passion than sense.

The contrast of Russian communism with Western democracy is bleak. The mural contrasts gas masks and bayonets with a Russian May Day worker’s celebration. There is Soviet diversity and inclusion contrasted to New York elitism and unemployment. Diego blamed the first world war on capitalism. Interestingly, Diego spent the entirety of the great war in Europe and even lost a child to cold and hunger that ravaged the continent during the protracted conflict. iego believed that capitalist speculation was to blame for the great depression and that only communism could save the world.

To this day you run into hard-core Stalinists who subscribe to a radically different view of history. I notice the same thing is happening with Trump: I now and then run into fervent supporters on the web, according to whom the man can do no wrong.

 

[stlukesguild]

I notice the same thing is happening with Trump: I now and then run into fervent supporters on the web, according to whom the man can do no wrong.

Unfortunately, I run into such individuals more frequently. There are more than a few in my extended family. They'll argue that Obama supporters were no less fervent... but honestly, I know of no one... outside of naive teens and twenty-somethings... who honestly saw him as some sort of Messiah figure.

 

[musket]

Obama gets painted as an extreme lefty by the right. He wasn't.

 

[stlukesguild]

According to most Western Europeans, the majority of the American Left are Centrist to Moderate Right. They are still strongly pro-Capitalism and pro-Industry. Martha Stewart was sent to jail for insider trading of some $50,000 when she was only following the tip from her broker. But all the bankers and CEOs behind the real estate and tech industry scams and collapse walked away Scott-Free... under Obama. Compare that to Iceland's response.

 

[HalifaxCB]

Frankly I'm much more interested in questions like how a political piece of art correlates in form with its supposed content, or how expressive techniques evolve in response to the political environment.

One of my favourite books on that is Ralph Shikes' The Indignant Eye:

The Indignant Eye: The Artist As Social Critic in Prints and Drawings from the Fifteenth Century to Picasso: Shikes, Ralph E.: 9780807066713: Books - Amazon.ca

The Indignant Eye: The Artist As Social Critic in Prints and Drawings from the Fifteenth Century to Picasso: Shikes, Ralph E.: 9780807066713: Books - Amazon.ca

www.amazon.ca

Alas new copies of that wonderful book are now priced out of range, but if you can find it used or in a library it's well worth a look.

Another book I forgot to mention the other day in my post about art from the Weimar Republic is the book sold through the exhibition, which is available in both German and English.
English Splendor and Misery in the Weimar Republic:

Splendor and Misery in the Weimar Republic: From Otto Dix to Jeanne Mammen: Pfeiffer, Ingrid: 9783777429335: Books - Amazon.ca

Splendor and Misery in the Weimar Republic: From Otto Dix to Jeanne Mammen: Pfeiffer, Ingrid: 9783777429335: Books - Amazon.ca

amazon.ca

German, Glanz un Elend in der Weimarer Republik:

Amazon.com: Glanz und Elend in der Weimarer Republik: 9783777429328: Books

Amazon.com: Glanz und Elend in der Weimarer Republik: 9783777429328: Books

www.amazon.com

Again, the new copies are rather expensive, but you may be able to find them used.

Anyway, this is a deep and fascinating field, and it would be nice to see the conversation move beyond current American politics. My own political position on this being more-or-less Drawing is the probity of art.

 

[brianvds]

I notice the same thing is happening with Trump: I now and then run into fervent supporters on the web, according to whom the man can do no wrong.

Unfortunately, I run into such individuals more frequently. There are more than a few in my extended family. They'll argue that Obama supporters were no less fervent... but honestly, I know of no one... outside of naive teens and twenty-somethings... who honestly saw him as some sort of Messiah figure.

Outside the U.S. he was often seen as being almost as much of a war monger as George Bush (he apparently signed off on vastly more drone strikes, for one thing). But compared to Trump, well, er...

Incidentally saw this on the web yesterday:

That little green blotch there? It's all of North America. The big, orange, oval thing next to it is Trump's ego.

 

[stlukesguild]

I'm much more interested in questions like how a political piece of art correlates in form with its supposed content, or how expressive techniques evolve in response to the political environment.

It seems to me that political art is rarely among that most likely to be involved in the development of new or cutting-edge artistic forms or visual language. It seems quite essential that an artist wishing to communicate to a larger audience will likely employ a known and acceptable visual language. This certainly seems true of Daumier, and most of the work of the German Expressionists, as well as the contemporary political art of Stelios Faitakis, Shepard Fairey, Sue Coe, Ron English, etc...

 

[xie-kitchin]

Regarding form in relation to context, I've always been into Barbara Kruger's work and the way she uses the language of advertising against itself, basically a kind of detournement.

Jenny Holzer's work is in a similar vein, since it's so heavily text-based, but looks less like something that could be a print ad or magazine layout.

This one is very recent, 2017-18, I think:

 

[brianvds]

Regarding form in relation to context, I've always been into Barbara Kruger's work and the way she uses the language of advertising against itself, basically a kind of detournement.

She's probably making a fortune out of it too.

That's the problem with this sort of thing: once it gets popular enough, it's printed en masse, and advertised everywhere ("Get your every own Barbara Kruger print, now at a reduced price! And if you call within the next hour, you also get..."

The business folks have it all worked out: they can market and sell anything, including attacks on the very notion of marketing and selling.

 

[Trier]

Outside the U.S. he was often seen as being almost as much of a war monger as George Bush (he apparently signed off on vastly more drone strikes, for one thing). But compared to Trump, well, er...

Incidentally saw this on the web yesterday:

View attachment 2025

That little green blotch there? It's all of North America. The big, orange, oval thing next to it is Trump's ego.

WOW! That really disqualifies him!!
Besides that, he combs his hair the wrong way and is therefore an obvious menace that needs to be removed by any and all means possible, legal or illegal!

People who use these criteria probably believe that he ought to be impeached and a subversive coup plot started.
With all due respect

 

[brianvds]

WOW! That really disqualifies him!!
Besides that, he combs his hair the wrong way and is therefore an obvious menace that needs to be removed by any and all means possible, legal or illegal!

People who use these criteria probably believe that he ought to be impeached and a subversive coup plot started.
With all due respect

Personally I find Trump so entertaining I hope he not only wins his coming election, but also manages to get the rules changed so he can remain president in perpetuity.

 

[stlukesguild]

You don't have to live with the ramifications of such an event living as you do in one of those "shit-hole countries."

 

[Trier]

Personally I find Trump so entertaining I hope he not only wins his coming election, but also manages to get the rules changed so he can remain president in perpetuity.

Thanks Brian for the lighthearted tone.

There is a danger that this discussion could get personal in a negative way, and I have no interest in pursuing that.

I think a major factor in getting this exchange off on the wrong foot was the lack of an exact proscribed category/forum for your original post, as I see it.

The forum/thread choices as far as I know would be; Art& Politics or Art and Humor. Since your post was in this ArtPolitics and it contained precious little art that I could see, I took it as another attempt at political propaganda, using the Art label to get before a wider audience.

I see now that your intent was humor, which is okay by me.

However, be advised that there are a lot of us in this country who take this election with deadly seriousness and are ready to take a stand and counterattack against any percieved threat or deception against the principles our nation was founded upon.

Perhaps quaint to non Americans, and something laugh and scoff and look down your noses at,
but ignore at your own risk.

BTW, the prohibition against a third term is a part of our Constitution, not just a mere 'law'.

With respect ,
Signing Off

 

[stlukesguild]

Olive! It's all your fault! You started this mess! By the way... as important as politics may be to me and as much as they impact me and even my career... I still have no intent to start churning out political art.

In Kenneth Clark's classic tome, The Nude he points out that one of the problems with paintings and sculpture etc... of the human nude is that the subject brings so much baggage with it that it can be difficult to discern whether we are seduced by the subject (a beautiful naked woman) or by the art itself. I suspect this is true of many subjects. Do we love the pretty flowers or cute puppies in the painting of the same? Or is it the art itself? This surely is true of political art. We have to ask ourselves if we find a particular piece of art to be crappy because we disagree with the political point of view expressed... or is it actually the art itself that we feel is bad? This is less true of art that is no longer tackling contemporary issues. I can admire... even like paintings by Goya and J.L. David that took opposite sides of political disputes but I suspect this would be more difficult with art touching on contemporary political issues that I find pressing.