20th century

Question 1

What’s the shift of importance of art into the 20th century?

Answer 1

• Socrates thought that the art should follow the ideas of the state; 20th century movements thought ideas from the artist should be shared. And in some cases go against the state
• the artwork was not disinterested, it should have a purpose, it does not have to represent the universally held beliefs but rather the views of individuals in a more subjective perspective
• Want to spark ideas people should think about whether it’s propaganda or just an idea

Question 2

what is politics?

Answer 2

the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power.

Question 3

what is the political potential of art? put another way – what are the options for art to influence/promote progressive social change?

Answer 3

Art can be used for spreading ideas or spreading propaganda. The difference is that propaganda only tells one side and tells you to act on it, while spreading ideas makes you sit and think about the different sides of an issue.

Politics also intrude on the arts

Question 4

what are the limitations/drawbacks/strengths, etc., of the options suggested by the readings?

Answer 4

it can either evoke a strong feeling towards X or animosity towards X. Most of the propaganda is based off interests on what will benefit their country/society, but if we take Rivera’s mural, the mural was not acceptable in rockefeller so they (immediately) took it down, else it would cause chaos within the city

Question 5

Compare these ideas to Plato’s ideas about art justified. or not, by its social function?

Answer 5

Plato’s idea was that art must function as a tool of the state, while the 20th century believed art should have a purpose but that purpose is dictated by the artist themselves.

Question 6

What historical event was key in Berger’s account?

Answer 6

World War 1, vietnam war as well

Question 7

Parade

Answer 7

Jean Cocteau

It was a surrealist play. Pretty sure it was to mock all of France’s weird bourgeoisie practices, because later the people who went would call the actors dirty Germans. B. class wanted to identify with the aristocracy and identify with its cultural enjoyments and Picasso did not deliver it.
10ft tall costumes made of cardboard

He wrote this in 1965 and he was looking back at WWI and now is writing during the Vietnam war.
“Exactly one month and one day before Parade opened in Paris, the French had begun their offense against the Hindenburg line”

Question 8

who is Picasso?

Answer 8

Picasso was an important and very popular painter PICASSO DIED IN THE 1970’S. HE CONTINUED TO MAKE ARTWORK ABOUT VARIOUS ISSUES THROUGHOUT HIS LIFE HE WAS VERY FAMOUS AND ACHIEVED A LOT OF CELEBRITY FOR HIS ART WORK. Considered one of the greatest artistic geniuses to have ever lived.

Question 9

why did parade fail acc. to Berger?

Answer 9

• people were outraged
• left feeling more patriotic
• It distracted the audience from the truth

The people who went to the play originally were expecting a classy ballet, not the crazy show that was the Parade. They actually got offended by the actors and called them dirty Germans, (Sale Boches) despite most of the actors not even being Germans. This allowed people to become so enraged that they just held firmer in their beliefs that a certain type of person (in this case, Germans) were bad and attributed everything that went against their beliefs to be the fault of the Germans.
They left feeling more patriotic than ever and believed that the war was noble and reasonable because they thought that parade was so outrageous and the creators were traitors
It distracted the audience from the truth

Question 10

Does Berger actually raise a problem with catharsis?

Answer 10

He says that the shocking nature of the Parade allows the B. class to release their angry feelings at the actors and make them hate their German enemies even more. It allows them to feel good about their set opinions rather than think about why they have them, reinforcing the opinions Picasso was trying to fight.

Question 11

What question must artists [and everyone] ask?

Answer 11

Why am I doing this instead of trying to help fix [insert problem here]? Exact quote: “How can I justify what I am doing at such a time?”

Question 12

is there an exemption ? i.e., is it possible to get a break [ like Juan Gris – why did he get one anyway?] and not respond to world events w/o being in bad faith?

Answer 12

If you’re a hermit with literally no idea what’s going on, then you can’t be at fault because you didn’t know. Juan Gris was a loner who did nothing but work on the art movement and that’s why he gets a pass; he was ignorant of problems and worked to help better the cubist movement.

Question 13

do you get an exemption ?

Answer 13

No. Any interaction with people will bring out the fact that there are greater problems in life, especially with the invention of the internet.

Question 14

How might Picasso respond to Berger?

Answer 14

Picasso said that he was a political person, but that not all art had to have a political meaning. Sometimes a flower is just a flower. “You can’t expect me, even as a politically engaged artist, to make all my paintings about politics. And if you’re doing that, you’re wrong, and you’re doing me a great disservice. If I paint a red shoe or a red flower, don’t interpret that as a communist shoe. That’s ridiculous”

Question 15

What’s Guernica about?

Answer 15

Picasso also said that Guernica wasn’t a painting about any event in particular, but it clearly was about suffering and was very anti-war. It is thought to be based on the bombing of the city Guernica.

Question 16

Picasso on use of paintings

Answer 16

We don’t do paintings just to decorate people’s apartments
Painting is an instrument for war and attack against the enemy
Enemy is facism/totalitarianism…even capitalism. Joins communist party at 63years old.

Question 17

DADA

Answer 17

the artists’ reaction to WW1. It was Anti Kantian for sure. Very anti- bourgeois
They focused mainly on Film and “new media” such as collages

Question 18

What was the political position of the Constructivists?

Answer 18

“Soviet Constructivist artists of the 1920s were concerned with developing a new kind of art which could, in conjunction with technology, develop revolutionary functional designs of practical use to their new society”

Question 19

Constructivists: When, Where + What events were they responding to?

Answer 19

1920s Russia. Soviets.

The ideas behind the revolution lead to an industrial and productivity based set of goals. Also post WWI there was a great need to build back up nations that had lost a lot or in Russia to build up a new nation of power and communist principles post revolution.

Question 20

What did David Alfaro Siqueiros want from art?

Answer 20

Spiritual expression - “the art of the Mexican People is to the most wholesome spiritual expression in the world”

Question 21

Who signed Siqueiros Declaration?

Answer 21

Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, Jean Charlot, Ignacio Asunsolo, Xavier Guerrero, Fermin Revueltas, Roberto Montenegro, Carlos Merida and many other signed

Question 22

Siqueiros- art

Answer 22

According to Siqueiros, easel painting represents the bourgeois and aristocratic society
He really liked mural painting and such because it was painting the world and everyone got to see it, unlike easel paintings that were essentially made to be bought by rich people to put into their private homes.

Question 23

In the 1930’s, what other events/conditions forced artists to fashion a political position and ask questions about art’s function in society? especially look at Breton here.

Answer 23

Nazi’s rise to power (1933); 
The great depression (1929-1939); 
Spanish Civil War (1936-1939); 
Guernica bombing (1937); 
WW2 officially starts in 1939

Question 24

What is the story of Rivera and the Rockefeller mural?

Answer 24

Rockefeller wanted Diego Rivera to paint a mural, but it was hidden because it featured Lenin’s face, which is very un-American. It was destroyed but then recreated in a museum in Mexico for fine art.
This mural is really important and influential to american artists despite having been censored here in the first place.

Question 25

Lippard, Coe: The 1960’s generation come of age .. what might have forced the issue of political consciousness for them?

Answer 25

The Vietnam War
The Feminist Movement
The Civil Rights Movement
General Cold War and Communist/Marxist revolutionaries all over the world.

Question 26

Coe: how does she evaluate her work?

Answer 26

Whether or not she tells the stories that need to be told
If she’s portraying the right ideas: in the rape of the woman picture, she felt she didn’t portray why these men were such monsters.

Question 27

What is propaganda? what are the positions of the various artists and writers on it use in/as art?

Answer 27

Prop. is not reflective and is biased to one side. It tells you what to think rather than asks you to think about a certain topic, and then commands action.
I’d say most of the artists think that art shouldn’t be used for prop., but constructivists and rivera definitely agree with propaganda.

Question 28

Marcus. how does Marcuse view the political potential of art?

Answer 28

There is a potential to use art to break through the monopoly of established reality (and those who control it) in order to see the real reality.
This is actually very Kantian, In fact, could it be said that Marcuse thinks the Kantian experience of beauty has a political function by opening minds to the possibility of change? Berger on Juan Gris agrees I think, as does Breton.