Marxism and Art (all over the place)

[Scott Marshall <Scott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

There are times when I, like Uncle Lou, enjoy the role of vulgar pedestrian
on this list, so..... Who else would quote James Garner, in his role as a
private eye on the Rockford Files....?

The setting is New Orleans, and sidewalk artists are displaying their wares
along a fence in one of those typical NO squares with big wrought iron
fences to lean the canvases against. (I've spent many a happy hour walking
through many such NO displays.)

Rockford is hasseling an artist for information and the kid is being snotty
and uncommunicative. Rockford gives up, but can't resist a parting salvo.

Rockford: (Pointing to a very jumbled, discordant abstract painting) What is
that? What are you painting?

Artist: I paint what I feel!

Rockford: I'm sorry to hear that. You must not feel very good!

_______________________

It's just a weird way of saying that I think the definition of good art for
marxist must include a very wide and broad spectrum. No art that uplifts the
human condition and spirit at any level can be truly bad art - well maybe
technically, but not aesthetically.

But I do disagree with some about 'socialist realism' and what I like to
call 'heroic poster proletariat art'. The problem is not with most of the
art that comes under these headings - I love it, it's uplifting, pro-human
and worker, and it's mostly bright and vibrant with color - the problem is
with drawing a definition of art that is so narrow as to ignore the other
great contributions to our centuries of art heritage that also meet great
standards of human acomplishments.

But I dispute the notion that the narrowmindedness of some art 'theory' that
proclaimed 'socialist realism' as the only correct proletariat art is
Marxist Leninist. These kinds of silly 'schools' and offical schools of art
are indeed part of the legacy of vulgarity associated with Stalin. But it is
equally silly to proclaim socialist realism as bad art out of context. It
served a great humanitarian and at times revolutionary purpose of uplifting
people in struggle. Sergie Eisenstein was a great film maker by anyones
measure - Potemkin is great film art that like all great art, is good even
out of it's histroic context. But also good art precisely because it did
strike some important chords in it's historic context.

Lenin and the Bolshiviki went to great pains to prevent looting and
vandalism against works of art that belonged to the Czar and the upper
classes and argued that these works were the property and legacy of the
whole working class and people.

I also think it's silly to evaluate any art on some kind of 'universal'
plane that stands above time, place and circumstance. What does it mean to
say that Woody Gutherie was no Blake, or Springsteen is no Gutherie - not
much of any import. And a mandolin is no harpsichord...so there.

Springsteen's song about Youngstown strikes a deep chord of discontent and
borning class consciouness in many of the people I'm around, just as 'Born
in the USA' did. Only in the sense that Gutherie also struck such chords in
folks in the depression are he and Springsteen similar. I stand corrected
but so what. You miss the point if you don't understand Youngstown poetry
and to quote those disgusting millionaires the Beatles on propaganda art:
"If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with
anyone anyhow"...<deadpan>.

Scott

"Can I get an amen somebody" - James Brown



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