The slaughter of WWI sparked an artistic revolution - what about now?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

Dadaism (for examle) burst upon the scene as artists became totally dissillusioned by the whole-sale slaughter of a whole generation of people. The despair felt by these people caused them to look at the world in whole new ways, rejecting the old modes of thought as decadent and the root cause of this apocalypse.

Here we are in 2004 and the capabilities for inhuman slaughter are far worse. At least the machine gunners of WWI could see people in the trenches across the no man's zone with their naked eyes.

Never mind nuclear annhialation - the grinding up and spitting out of people in their thousands by Americas military industrial complex has dehumanized another generation.

Where is the artisitic revolution - where is the outraged denouncement of the status quo - the burning of our institutions?

[ewagner]

1. Interesting question

Do you suppose that the movement is really there but we don't recognize it?

Does the web have anything to do with it? Is the web itself part of the movement.

This could be a wonderful topic of discussion. Thanks for bringing it up.

[theivoryqueen]

2. I have taken to constructing giant, heavy concrete peices

that are to be placed randomly in city and county parks. I am thinking there will be a lot more of this "drive-by-arting" coming up soon....

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

6. I like it - smacks of the blocks the admin uses to keep protestors at bay

it would be nice to be ironic about it - as if these obstacles make you "more free"

I like it!

[BlackVelvetElvis]

3. This is something that interests me

Dada, right now, has become a huge influence on me. I'm outraged!
You have touched on my plan for my senior thesis (I'm finishing my Bachelor's in art)-I'm in the research phase-assembling materials and so forth.
Collage will be my medium.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. What a funny name for an artist. *g* Me, I like the unicorns on velvet.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

7. Mygrandmother had a olive green velvet relief painting (it was puffy) with

racehorses and jockeys racing. It is singularly the finest piece I have seen - I plan to own it one day

[BlackVelvetElvis]

8. I like irony too! n/t

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. The MoPaulist movement is well underway. *l*

[Cats Against Frist]

9. I think it's a little complicated

As far as poetry goes, which is about all I can speak to, although I think this can be extrapolated to a number of arts -- there is an internal battle going on (and has been) about whether or not "meaning" is important to art.

Many of the more subversive artists, at least those who get recognition in the more avant-garde communities (I am, of course, not speaking of Billy Collins, here) -- have the bluebird of pomo sitting on their shoulders, and too overt of a message is, well, kind of taboo.

There are tons of articles out in the journals about whether poetry can make a difference, and as NEA chair Dana G. believes, that "difference" has to come from actually having a coherent message in your poetry -- or at least something that is situated in the real world and not "languaged" out of the atmosophere. The "language" movement WAS a political movement in itself, intended to subvert traditional meaning, narrative, etc. -- as a tool of the capitalistic culture.

But what now? Good question. I think most people believe that combining political "messages" with good poetry is a very hard thing to do, as most of the "magic" of poetry lies in the unstated --- that which is more "difficult" to "get." And, in essence, it's like preaching to the choir, because MOST of the people who like and participate in the "high arts (?)" are already pretty much against the status quo and all that.

So -- what kind of art will move the masses? Thomas Kinkade?

It's a good question -- one that I don't have the answer to.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

11. I think what you are saying applies to theater as well

I think that guerilla street theater is something that people respond to when it has a message.

I wonder how they would respond to something that was more dada in spirit?

I think people have become so removed from art that they don't care any ore. Remember dada happened before television?

[Cats Against Frist]

16. Yes, of course

And it is quite true that art has suffered from the influx of other media.

And I think it does apply to theater, as well -- and poetry, in the sense of "Slam" poetry, which I think is a lot more effective at delivering a message ABOUT something, that EVERYBODY can understand.

But then, if it's easily graspable, is it art?

And some would argue, in reaction to the post below me, that nonrepresentational art actually amplifies dehumanization and isolation, or at best, illustrates it and supports something of a "puritainical" (think of feminists being called "unisexers") worldview of modernism, which is against spirituality, inherent "meaning," etc.

I love this discussion, because it really encompasses art, philosophy, politics, etc. -- after Dada, pomo, etc. -- what is left? My own personal view is that "meaning" can be brought cautiously back into the fold, and an authoritative author with a veiwpoint has been drummed so far out, that bringing it back in and dislocating it, playing with it, etc., is a reasonable option for "freshness."

Can it change anything, though? Dancing around the philsophical issues that lie around the centers of "real change?" Maybe the "art" that is most suitable for this is F9-11, Rage Against the Machine, etc., etc.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

23. Kandinsky, in "on Spirituality in Art" spoke of a synthesis between

the abstract and the representational as a backlash against the failed systems which have brought about t he destruction of humanity (That is a poor synopsis at best) but my point being we need to apply both. I think abstraction has very much lost out in this age of visual overstimuli.

[bloom]

10. It has affected my art

When I contemplated what images to create - I did not want to represent the physical world that we are a part of.

[Squeech]

12. How much of mass movement was Dada?

My understanding was that it was pretty much in the underground. How many people attended Cabaret Voltaire events that didn't already know one of the artists personally?

What I keep hoping for is something like the Summer of Love, with music, dance, literature, and new forms (happenings and light shows back then; should be some virtual reality environments now).

[Cats Against Frist]

18. That's a very good point

and even now -- if you were to ask my Mom "what happened to Dada," she'd say: "He's out back, working in the Garage."

[playahata1]

13. Don't forget that WRITERS also contributed to the post-WW I

disillusionment as chronicled and reflected in the arts. Check out the works of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot and James Joyce and Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

What we are seeing is the further fragmentation of a society that already had been fragmented by two world wars, the Cold War, the U.S. flexing its not-always-right might worldwide (Vietnam, Central America, the Middle East), and other tectonic shifts in society. Call it post-postmodernism. The artists and writers amd musicians who are calling the bullshit for what it is ARE out there. However, with the possible exception of Michael Moore, they're just not "mainstream" enough to be seen and heard by the mass of Americans -- which is not to say that the "mainstream" is the only "legitimate" stage from which to perform.

Furthermore, what makes these artists' jobs even harder is the fact that people are too anesthetisized (sp.), too dulled-out, too callous, too selfish, too stupid, to listen to anything other than what their "masters" tell them.

[troublemaker]

14. WWI didn't reenergize art; it destroyed it

Post WWI Modernism was an aethetic dead-end; a rejection of everything that led to WWI that required throwing the baby of western culture out with the bathwater.

Political art is crap. Politically inspired art is crap. Most art where you can readily deduce the artist's political views is crap.

Edward Hopper was a fairly bitter FDR-hating Republican. We know that from his biography but I doubt anyone ever deduced that from his work. Now that's an artist!

Politics is the refinement of broadcast lying. Art is the refinement of subjective truth. Art is at it's best when it states, not comments.

IMO.

[Cats Against Frist]

19. I tend to side with you

but I think that there are still some ways that things could be snuck in -- or at least used as subtexts, that give a subtle impression of the viewpoints of the author. And I think that's OK -- but, again, would anything that could still be seen as "artistic" ever be loud enough to enact real change? Probably not. And as you said -- if it is, it's probably crap. It's a fine fucking line.

Edited for change in opinion:

Wait -- on second read, maybe I don't. Are you making an argument for "classical" or "romantic" art? It seems like your argument is kind of mixed up -- and you can't blanket all of post WW1 modernism as an "aesthetic dead end," unless you're making an argument for romantic or classical art.

Unless you're purely pomo-- and I have yet to meet anyone who swallows this whole.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

25. What about Guernica for God's sake?

What about Diego Rivera, Orozco, Tamayo and other Mexican artists in the early 20th century? Would you say that there's was a lesser art?

[troublemaker]

15. delete

[The Magistrate]

17. There Is Not Really Much Comparison, Mr. Truth

It takes a real effort to wrap the mind about the degree of actual slaughter in the Great War. It killed or mained roughly a fifth of the able-bodied male population of Europe. That is a degree of stress that must effect a society, and far beyond its arts.

While the potential for killing may be greater and more impersonal today, such killing has not in fact eventuated. Only a very small proportion of the populace of the United States is involved in the military adventure, and that military adventure has yet to kill as many people, including civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq, as a busy month at Verdun or the Somme could be counted on to put under dirt.

Further, artists have been engaged now for almost a century in construing what they do as revolution, against targets ranging from the military-industrial complex to the very definition of art itself. Indeed, such impulses have become the current academic formalism of the trade, and a genuine revolution in the arts could only aim at breaking this, and asserting some form of decorative disengagement from such interests....

[bloom]

20. early in 2002

I saw a lot of older American Landscapes shown in Europe - almost in a glorifying kind of way.

Wouldn't expect to now.

Recently (Sunday?) the New York Times had a article saying that people are getting away from buying impressionists and bucolic images. Going for modern.

[The Magistrate]

22. But Very Few People Buy High Art In Any Case, Ma'am

Popular taste has not much changed, and a wretch like Kincaid outsells the entire production of modern working artists.

Without foundation grants and purchases by galleries, the moderns would grind to a halt....

[bloom]

26. I think it could reflect a shift.

Not that there won't be a market for Kincaid, etc., but that people who want to think of themselves as "educated" (or something) may find themselves appreciating artists other than Monet, etc. Monet has been popular for an awfully long time. It seems like it's time for a change.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

27. Do you mean a new Arts and Crafts type movement? Pre-raphealite type?

Perhaps?

[The Magistrate]

38. Perhaps, Sir

Something quietist and pretty, in any case, that required real skill with tools to execute. That latter, particluarly, would be the most revolutionary thing possible, in terms of art and artists, today.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

39. There are - especially amongst portrait artists some very classicly skille

painters still at it. but they're not what I would call revolutionary.

Here's a piece from my favorite teacher, Steve Assael:

[The Magistrate]

40. That Is A Nice Piece, Sir

My current monitor probably does not nearly do it justice, but its quality is clear enough.

My remarks are aimed at a distinction between revolutionary in a larger political and social sense, and revolutionary within the art world itself, in terms of the long prevailing modernist ideology (if that is not is not too strong a word). It seems to me that the idea of artist as revolutionist has been for many years so commonplace as to constitute a species of conformity, and further that it has had remarkably little effect beyond the self-image of various artists. Within the context of the art world itself, only skilled representational efforts embodied in artifacts, it seems to me, could be called revolutionary, against the primacy of various styles of abstraction, and ephemera, that have prevailed through most of the last century.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

41. How do you feel about Picasso, Miro and others reaching to

"primative" objects such as african masks as a new abstraction? There work was hailed as revolutionary yet they were inspired by ancient art?

Do we need a new evaluation of the past? A reconnection and regrounding with what makes us human and united?

[The Magistrate]

42. In Their Time, Sir, It Was A Formidable Thing

If for no other reason than the blow it struck against the deeply rooted conception that no thing of any value had ever been produced by Negroes and other "primitives", as it was still the fashion to regard aboriginal peoples. By claiming artifacts these people had produced as high art, some small contribution was certainly made to breaking the easy racist assumptions of the era.

You are doubtless sufficiently capable of reading between the lines to understand abstraction has never much appealed to me as an artistic form. Stylization, on the other hand, the extraction of some essential within a form, does make some appeal, and in my view, that, rather than abstraction, is the proper characterization of the ritual artifacts of the older cultures. They do a strikingly good job of communicating human and spiritual essences and concepts on which these cultures based themselves. They also reflect a great deal of skilled artisan's work, with a very limited and cumbersome set of tools, in most instances, and that is a thing that always has my profound respect.

My leading interest, Sir, being history, a deep study and evaluation of the past is always agreeable to me. Whether this can lead to a regrounding and reconnection with what makes us human and similar, though, does not seem so certain to me. Historical enquiry, like just about any tool, tends to produce what its wielder desires, and a person who was so disposed might just as easily emerge from such a study even more confirmed in beliefs of difference and seperateness and even superiority to all previous human existances. As someone once said: "Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it."

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

43. A truer saying I don't think I've ever heard

Generations of white people have stiven to squash the artistic achievements of Black Africans. The example that comes immediately to mind is Great Zimbabwe (http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/landow/post/zimbabwe/art/greatzim/gz1.html )

I do feel that a reaching back to the past to find the good that was there is in order. I cannot embrace the enthusiasm the Futurists once had, though I can't lose myself in the euphoria that the Orientalists did.

I'm still searching! Unfortunately I have to cut my end of this short.

Its great to talk to you, sir. As always.

[The Magistrate]

44. And With You, Sir!

This has been a most pleasant exchange.

[recidivist]

45. Re: artist as revolutionist.

For a good many years now I have been bemused by the chronic political posturing of "modern" artists. Somehow the idea got loose that quality "art" was a form of radical critique.

The truth is, throughout history most great art has been devotional, celebratory, narrative, or simply decorative. Some of it has had a critical bite, and that's fine, but I cannot understand the terrible reductionism of those who think this one dimension is so all-important.

[thebigidea]

21. SCOTTY VOICE: "I'm tryin', Captain - I'm givin' her all she's got!"

[tom_paine]

24. Well, I think that the Age of Totalitarianism that is coming won't be

very friendly to ANY "revolutions" and certainlty not a Liberal Art Revolution.

Those people will be in Gulags or chased from the Empire by 2050, I'd guess.

Maybe in the Free World, but not Imperial Amerika.

I hope I'm wrong, but that rarely happens since the very predicatble Age of Totalitarianism began in Nov. 2000.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

28. I believe that the more totalitarian - the greater the human need for art

I think the wrose it gets the better the work will be - thats been the past examples.

IMHO

[tom_paine]

35. Maybe. Unfortunately I think we are going to get to find out.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

36. Agreed Señor Paine

Unfortunately

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

29. It did more than that. It sparked real revolutions.

Russia, Hungary, Germany, Poland, to name a few.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

30. Agreed and, especially in the case of Russia - art was part of it

Propoganda and Art have always danced together

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. Germany produced some great revolutionary art & literature.

Bertolt Brecht
Kathe Kollwitz
Groz
Erich Maria Remarque

To name a few.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

33. And the secesionists

n/t

[amazona]

31. it's sort of been there, done that

The outraged denouncement of the status quo has been going on pretty much since World War 1, as you say, with even a few sparks of protest coming earlier -- Dickens and Hugo spring to mind immediately. It can't be an artistic revolution when it has been going on for over a century. Dada was once something only a few artistic types could understand, now the surreal is an accepted form of artistic discourse even among conservatives (see under David Lynch). Something like what Michael Moore is doing, which is pretty straight-forward and not at all a revolution in film-making, might be more important than trying to be endlessly "original" and innovative artistically. I don't know -- it's an interesting topic. Certainly people are outraged and it spills out in their art. I just read today that Nicholson Baker, which I think most of us know as the literary pornographer who penned Vox (about phone sex) and The Fermata (about a guy who stops time and takes women's clothes off), is putting out a novel about two men discussing the assassination of Chimpy. It doesn't sound like an artistic revolution, and his writing in the past has been very straight-forward and concrete, but apparently this work comes close to the edge of what can be said legally in the U.S. So people are expressing their times in their art, but using traditional techniques for clarity.

[NashVegas]

34. Institutionalized Art

Commerce has successfully harnessed our artists and put them to work in their Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and Music Row factories.

When the entertainment industry is laying in rubble, you'll see the explosion.

In the meantime, people are waking up. Repressive regimes are great for inspiring genuine human expression. Think of all the great protest art of the last two years.

[donsu]

37. I've painted two pieces since the 2000 coup d'etat

and I'm sure other artists have too. it takes awhile for art to get out unless you are a star artist.

one was prompted by smirk's 'revisionist history': I did prehistoric bones

and the other by Homeland Security: I did dragons and gargoyls on mirror

they please me which is what counts