[PEN-L:2460] RE: Ben Shahn

["Brown, Martin (NCI)" <brownm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I recently found, in an old bookstore in rural Pennsylvania, a 1939 first
edition (Alfred A. Knopf) biography of Diego Rivera, by Betram Wolf.  To read a
contemporary biography of Rivera by a politically sympathetic art historian is
very enlightening. (Wolf was a noted art historian with half a dozen books
published by Knopf, and he was also, I believe, a Trotskyist, [By the way, Pete
Camejo told me in Berkeley that "Trotskyite" is a derisive term, sort of the
like the Republican "Democrat" party, of course even more derisive is the term
"Trots"].  Wolf had the honor of being incorporated, along with Lenin, in one of
Rivera's murals as a symbol of the progress of humanity. Anyway, worth reading
if you can find it.  A recently read a review of a new biography of Rivera that
has just been published (I forget the author) and, at least from the review, my
impression is that the Wolf book stands heads and shoulders above the current
work.

	-----Original Message-----
	Sent:	Thursday, January 21, 1999 4:51 PM
	To:	marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
	Cc:	MJBUHLE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
	Subject:	[PEN-L:2438] Ben Shahn

	(Third in a series on art and revolution)

	Ben Shahn was one of the foremost Social Realist artists of the 1930s.
At
	the outset we have to recognize that this movement arose in response to
the
	political/esthetic directives of Stalin's government. The original
	Constructivist style that emerged with the victory of the Bolsheviks was
	basically outlawed and Soviet artists either adapted to the new agenda
or
	left the country.

	Ironically, while the style became identified with the cultural and
	political retreat of the Soviet Thermidor, in the west--particularly the
	United States--it reflected an upturn in the revolutionary movement.
Nobody
	needed to dictate to artists that they should serve the revolutionary
	movement. The objective forces of history were sufficient to do that. In
	David Shapiro's introduction to his "Social Realism: Art as a Weapon," a
	collection of articles by artists and critics both for and against the
	movement in the 1930s, there's a useful summary of Social Realism:

	"Social Realism is not an art of the studio--rarely does one see a
painting
	of the model, costumed or nude, and even less frequently is a still life
	encountered. Social Realism's only landscapes are at least partly
	cityscapes--a decaying mining village, or shacks along the railroad
tracks.
	A variety of genre painting, Social Realism takes as its main subject
	certain significant or dramatic moments in the lives of ordinary poor
	people. The moments in their lives selected (and it is always a moment
in
	someone's life--it is hard to think of Social Realist painting that does
	not include a human being) are almost always those that in some way
focus
	on the indignity or pathos of their situation--the hard work they
perform.
	the inadequate rewards they receive for it, or the miserable conditions
	they work under. There is almost always, implied or explicit, a
criticism
	made of the capitalist system. With this as their subject matter, Social
	Realists perforce showed those aspects of American life that were the
least
	'pretty.' Not for them to glory in the soaring mountains, or, for that
	matter, in the soaring skyscrapers. Instead, they painted the people in
the
	slums, the industrial suburbs, the factory towns, and sometimes on the
	farm. When rich people appear, they are the objects of satirical
derision:
	art patrons unable to understand the pictures they look at, dowagers
	attending opera for snob reasons only, millionaires dining in splendor
half
	the world goes hungry."

	This is the esthetic world that Ben Shahn emerges from. Along with other
	notables such as Philip Evergood and William Gropper, Shahn was part of
the
	CP-dominated cultural front that the Trotskyist intellectuals derided.
This
	was not art, but propaganda, according to the precepts of Meyer Shapiro
and
	Clement Greenberg. Such easy dismissal must be critically re-evaluated,
as
	Alan Wald, a post-Trotskyist literary critic, has attempted to do in the
	literary field, with particular emphasis on the "proletarian novel". We
	have to consider the possibility that, for all its flaws, Social Realist
	art has much more to say to us today as people who are striving to
	transform the world. Rather than being some kind of one-dimensional
	cartoon, the work of Ben Shahn has the sort of humanitarianism that is
the
	inner essence of all attempts to transform the world.

	Shahn was born in 1898 in Kovno, Lithuania, the first of five children
of a
	traditional Orthodox Jewish family. His father was a woodcarver and
	cabinetmaker. Sometimes we can lose sight of how oppressed Eastern
European
	Jews were in this period. They faced discrimination and violence
everywhere
	they turned. When the Russian Revolution of 1917 declared war on all
forms
	of anti-Semitism, Jews instinctively turned toward the new government.
In a
	fascinating oral history collection titled "Followers of the Trail:
Jewish
	working-class radicals in America," author David Leviatin presents the
	testimony of Harry M.:

	"At that time there was truly no antisemitism. It was forgotten. We were
	proud, we were equal citizens, we could travel anywhere we wanted, we
could
	get any job we wanted, we were free to live wherever we wanted. No
	discrimination. The Jews were very happy. Antisemitism didn't show
except
	in reactionary circles. Those that were in the counterrevolutionary
	movement, they blamed everything on the Jews. It's not a question of a
	Russian being a Communist. Jew and Communist was synonymous, and that
was
	their propaganda.

	"But Jews had their full rights, like everybody else. They were the
	leaders, they were the members of the soviets, they were the members of
the
	government. The Gentiles that were with the Red Army had no opposition
to
	it. I think there was even a law then that if you abused a Jew or used
the
	words 'dirty Jew' you were getting six months in jail."

	The subjects of Leviatin's book are literally the social base of Ben
	Shahn's artwork. They were working-class New York Jews of the Communist
	Party, now in their 80s and 90s, who founded a summer camp in 1929
called
	"Followers of the Trail." Most were garment workers, who had fled Russia
	before the revolution, as Shahn had. There were a network of such summer
	retreats throughout upstate New York, where workers and their children
	would escape the summer heat. They sang Soviet folk songs, attended
	meetings to hear about the Spanish Civil War, picked berries, and played
	pinochle. When I was a young child growing up in this area, these
workers
	were still vigorous and outspoken. They were the same old-timers who
would
	fill Union Square Park in NYC on Sunday afternoon to argue about
politics.
	Now it is filled with young lawyers and investment bankers rushing to
their
	dinner engagements, talking on their cell phones.

	While Shahn was not an observant Jew, Jewish identity remained prominent
in
	his work from the beginning to the end. This was expressed in many
	different ways, but primarily it had to do with the immigrant
experience,
	which he was part of himself. Jews had not yet been assimilated into
	American society and Shahn was anxious to express their vulnerability,
	which he felt despite his success in the art world. Even before Shahn
had
	become famous for his Sacco and Vanzetti series, his first socially
	conscious work took Alfred Dreyfus as the subject.

	Immigration was perhaps the number one subject for American Jews in
1939,
	when Shahn painted a mural for the St. Louis Post Office. The Nazis
passed
	the Nuremburg Laws in 1935, which legally disenfranchised Jews who were
now
	classified as non-citizens. Shahn brushed aside state government
	suggestions to paint about St. Louis history. Although the mural did
	address regional history through the westward migration of the 19th
	century, the main focus of the mural was European immigration and the
	plight of the Jews. He contrasts images of families beginning a new life
	with babies and bundles in hand, against images of concentration camps
	surrounded by barbed wire.

	As David Shapiro pointed out, this kind of mural art was not created in
	studios for the private collector. The primary medium was the public
mural
	and no other event captures the revolutionary mission of Social Realist
	artists than the Rockefeller Center mural, which pitted creator Diego
	Rivera against the young Nelson Rockefeller. Shahn not only worked on
the
	mural, but fiercely defended the right of the artists to define the
subject
	matter, including portraits of Lenin and Trotsky.

	Howard Greenfeld's new biography of Shahn, titled "Ben Shahn: an
artist's
	life," details his role. Rivera had hired Shahn, after discovering his
	Sacco and Vanzetti series. The relationship between Rivera and Shahn
	mirrors the one between Siqueiros and Pollock, with shared enthusiasms
over
	politics and artistic style. While Pollock eventually veered off into
the
	sort of "art for art's sake" studio-based work that Shahn eschewed,
Shahn
	never lost sight of his original mission.

	The theme of the mural was to be "Man at the Crossroads." Rivera
	interpreted this as a choice between capitalism and socialism and left
no
	room for ambiguity in the original sketch for the mural. It seems that
	1930s Social Realists allowed themselves maximum flexibility, as Shahn's
	encounter with the St. Louis Post Office indicated. Rivera and Shahn
were
	cut from the same cloth. Social justice meant more than the petty
concerns
	of their patrons, either private or public.

	The capitalist side of the mural alluded to unemployment and gambling,
	while the socialist side depicted workers holding banners high, singing
and
	smiling as they marched down the road. Shahn helped Rivera fill in the
	details of the unemployment piece in the mural by bringing in photos of
a
	violent demonstration on Wall Street. Rivera painted directly from the
	photos, which depicted mounted police ready to attack.

	Rockefeller had a change of heart as the mural neared completion. Since
the
	portrait of Lenin "might seriously offend a great many people," he asked
	Rivera to substitute it with an "unknown man." Rivera came up with a
	counter-proposal. Instead of Lenin, he would be happy to include a
famous
	figure out of America's revolutionary past and offered a choice of
Lincoln,
	John Brown, Nat turner, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips or
Harriet
	Beecher Stowe. Ben Shahn was not happy with this proposal and protested
to
	Rivera.

	On May 9th, workmen covered the mural with wood planks. The building was
	surrounded by mounted cops, who seemed to have leapt from the
unemployment
	section of the mural. Five days later, a "United Front" committee sprang
	into existence to protest the banning of the mural. According to
Greenfeld,
	"a near riot broke when the various factions--among them the official
	Communists and dissidents like the Trotskyites and the
	Lovestoneites--noisily attacked one another." Shahn assumed leadership
of
	the protestors, restoring peace by announcing that representatives from
the
	fifteen organizations that made up the United Front would picket Radio
City
	between six and eight the following evening. A man after my own heart.

	Shahn's political and ethnic concerns were knitted together on the
occasion
	of his move to the Jersey Homesteads in 1936. This housing cooperative
was
	to be built in conjunction with new garment shops in the area, so as to
	allow New York's primarily Jewish workforce to work in more humane
	conditions than they had ever experienced. The Jersey Homesteads was the
	dream of Benjamin Brown, a Ukrainian Jew who had emigrated to the United
	States and worked his way through agricultural school in Pennsylvania.
	Greenfeld describes him as having an "obsessive interest" in setting up
	cooperative settlements throughout the United States. I suspect that
Brown
	was strongly influenced by the Jewish agricultural cooperative movement
of
	the late 19th and early 20th century. In a move that paralleled the
Zionist
	movement, many Jews thought that their emancipation was only possible
	through a return to the land. Agricultural colonies were launched in
	Argentina, upstate New York, New Jersey and Palestine. The farmers who
	settled in Palestine were not Zionists as much as they were agrarian
	socialists. The Russian Revolution tended to focus Jewish left-wing
efforts
	on the urban, trade union movement from 1917 onward, but it is clear
that
	the Jersey Homesteads retained aspects of these earlier experiments.

	At the Jersey Homesteads, Shahn was free at last from outside
interference.
	There were no Nelson Rockefellers around to dictate who was "politically
	correct" or not. (In reality, political correctness has been the
dominant
	feature of capitalist society from its inception. It only became an
issue
	when the left wing decided to assert itself in the 1980s.) The most
glaring
	challenge to Shahn's artistic freedom would occur in 1938 when Shahn
	decided to feature Walt Whitman prominently in a mural for the Bronx
Post
	Office. Whitman, it turned out, was on the Catholic Index, because of
his
	"irreligion." Although no other reasons were put forward, one can only
	surmise that it had much more to do with Whitman's sexual orientation
than
	anything else.

	Rightwingers were mobilized to hassle Shahn. One day a woman complained
to
	him that he was defacing the post office with all those "Communist
workers"
	on the wall. This was a particular offense to her because her ancestors
had
	fought in the American revolution. He got so angry that he kicked over a
	paint bucket. He then told her that his ancestors had fought in the
battle
	of Jericho, but he didn't go around bragging about it.

	As WWII began, and as the Soviet Union became less of a pole of
attraction
	for many Americans, Shahn was not immune from the same sort of
	depoliticization that affected Pollock and the Abstract Expressionist
	school. He turned away from murals, which actually were being
commissioned
	less frequently, and began to turn his attention to studio paintings.
The
	political themes became more muted, although there was never a retreat
from
	the horrible realities of the 1940s.

	It didn't matter much that Shahn had adapted to political and artistic
	realities by the late 1940s. He had been tagged as a Social Realist and
the
	political and artistic establishment had decided to marginalize such
people.

	The most dramatic expression of Shahn's isolation was his reception at
	Black Mountain College, over a four week visit to the college in the
summer
	of 1951. He was to teach an art class upon the invitation of Charles
Olson,
	the president of the college. Although Olson had fostered modernist
	experimentation at the school, he still had strong attachments to the
New
	Deal politics of his pre-writing days. Olson had been a high official in
	FDR's administration, before obsessions with Moby Dick had convinced him
	that his true vocation was poetry.

	Shahn was an icon of his Olson's youth. Olson, who was one of the most
	moody and curmudgeonly characters of 20th century literature, drew Shahn
	aside to comfort him when he discovered that his wife had developed a
	breast tumor. He told Shahn that he would stand with him against "all
these
	little shit painters" at the college. In the next breath Olson dressed
	Shahn down because his art had stood still for more than three years.

	One of the nastiest little shits at Black Mountain was fellow faculty
	member Robert Motherwell, the ex-Trotskyist and bourgeois figure who had
	made the initial connections between heiress Peggy Guggenheim and the
	painters in his group in the 1930s. Motherwell, like Pollock, had become
a
	real big shot and scourge of all the left-wing artists. At a conference
	held at the MOMA in 1947, Motherwell red-baited Shahn as "the leading
	Communist modern artist in America."

	This was the "party line" of the Abstract Expressionists and their
	hangers-on: give credit to Shahn's achievements while belittling him as
a
	curiosity. In a Nation Magazine review of a Ben Shahn retrospective at
the
	MOMA in that same year, ex-Trotskyist Clement Greenberg wrote
maliciously:

	"On the whole Shahn's art seems to have improved with time. The later
	pictures become more sensitive and more painterly. That his 'social
	consciousness' has at the same time become less prominent does not, in
my
	opinion, play much of a role here; it is simply that Shahn gains better
	control of his medium as he goes along. Yet there has been a certain
loss
	of vigor. Nothing improves on or repeats the shock of Handball. There is
an
	attempt to strengthen and vary color, but to little avail. Shahn, more
	naturally photographer than painter, feels only black and white, and is
	surest of himself when he orients his picture in terms of dark and
light.
	All other chromatic effects tend to become artificial under his brush.

	"This art is not important, is essentially beside the point as far as
	ambitious present-day painting is concerned, and is much more derivative
	than it seems at first glance. There is a poverty of culture resources,
a
	pinchedness, a resignation to the minor, a certain desire for "quick"
	acceptance--all of which the scale and cumulative evidence of the
present
	show make more obvious. Yet Shahn has a genuine gift, and that he has
not
	done more with it is perhaps fault of the milieu in which he has worked,
	even more than his own."

	This "milieu" that Greenberg refers to contemptuously are immigrant
Jewish
	garment workers, who defined not only Shahn's own esthetic and political
	principles, but his own as well at an earlier time in his life. Shahn
took
	all this in stride and continued to create works that were addressed to
the
	masses rather than the art market. Although he--and nobody else--could
make
	paintings about the labor movement any more, he did dedicate himself to
	raising people's consciousness about the dangers of nuclear war. Deeply
	distressed by Hiroshima and the nuclear arms race, Shahn illustrated a
	series of articles in Harpers Magazine during 1957 about Japanese
fishermen
	who had been exposed to radiation in the waters off Bikini atoll. This
new
	cause consumed him with the sort of passion that the labor movement had
	inspired in him decades earlier.

	I am not interested in Shahn's place in the hierarchy of great artists.
I
	don't have the background to "grade" him and this sort of competition is
	frankly expressive of the degradation of late capitalism. Contests to
pick
	the top 50 novels or artists of the 20th century are argued out with the
	same frenzy as those involving who are the top 50 basketball players.

	What does interest me are the two contrasting social roles of artists.
	Jackson Pollock starts out in the same manner as Hecht, but ends up as
an
	alcoholic careerist. The appetite for success can never be completely
	satisfied in bourgeois society. The commodity not only raises
expectations
	in the consumer that can never be satisfied, it also frustrates the
	producer of the commodity who has to compete with other producers for a
	chimerical market. If this profit-maximizing mechanism ever grinds to a
	halt, the system would fall apart. It is a system based on the treadmill
of
	desire. Like rats, we rush ahead trying to snatch the piece of cheese
that
	is always an inch in front of our nose.

	Shahn had very little interest in this sort of pursuit. Although he
	believed in his work, he believed in social justice and peace more.
Jackson
	Pollock's death by automobile accident in some ways marks the end of an
	era: Abstract Expressionism in its ascendancy. What follows it is art
	stripped of any overarching esthetic or political goals. People like
Andy
	Warhol capture this postmodernist--and I use this term advisedly--mood
	perfectly.

	In my next post, I want to explore how the radical art movement of the
	1930s lingered on into the 50s and early 60s and shaped our contemporary
	culture. This story of how this reconfigured popular front culture
	influenced not only the new poetry movement, but other artistic forms as
	well, is a fascinating story. In a very real sense, the political and
	cultural world of the left wing of today has its roots in the Social
	Realism of the 1930s. My final post will consider the world of pop art,
the
	avant-garde and the artist as entrepreneur.


	Louis Proyect
	(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)