Abstract art is our heritage; let's not hastily disclaim it
1991 1991-10Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 24 →
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Introductory offer $3 for 6 months Gulln Phone Clip and return to: Socialist Action, 3435 Army St., Rm. 308, SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1991 23 This is a response to the Opinion article by Franklin Balch titled "Do the visual arts have a future?" (August 1991 Socialist Action. Yes, they do if the working class does. The real visual arts are in no more or less trouble than communist leadership.
Interest in the visual arts is subject to class analysis. Bourgeois interest in the arts palled because of their own increasing fears and worsening economy. Working-class interest in art, like most working-class creative activity, is imprisOPINION oned by bourgeois power. Ever since Impressionism, they have grown ever more skillful at stealing what is properly to the credit of the working class.
Mondrian and Brancusi were not the pioneers of abstraction. They were only tame echoes of the great leap to abstraction created by the Soviet constructivists and suprematists. These were intellectuals moved by the great revolution. Let's not deny our own and believe bourgeois propaganda.
Abstraction is not bourgeois decadence. Abstraction is illusionistic of reality. The ability to describe the general motion of bodies rather than particular views of particular objects is valuable. Abstraction is ours. Let's not so hastily disclaim it.
The writer of the article in question wonders whether much of what is called "art" today is even art at all. First, ask who does the calling. Just because there is a bourgeois art market with magazines and a gallery scene does not mean that what they show us is in fact valuable. Dealers are small business people who are blind to art, due to their economic interests. We cannot leave what is properly a social decision to them.
Who might show us what is at present happening in the visual arts worldwide? To my knowledge, Cuba does the best job. The curatorial staff responsible for organizing the Havana Biennial has done the best job of putting together encyclopedic exhibitions of contemporary art, much of which is art of social conscience.
Art does not have the potential to create revolutionary change. This is the biggest NEWSPAPER CAINST NEWSPAPER GUILD OF NEW YORK UNE SIE LABOR RATE TRIKE mistake of Balch's article. In our time, only the working class has the potential to cause revolutionary change.
Furthermore, artists do not scare the bourgeoisie; at most they can be a bit embarrassing. Artists cannot unionize. They do not sell their labor by the hour nor work in factories arranged for productivity by division of labor. Artists cannot interfere with production.
The present malaise in what is claimed to be the art world will last as long as the bourgeoisie does. Contrary to what is hoped for in the article, American art bas Name Address City Subscribe to $8 for one year State San Francisco, CA 94110. (415) 821-0458
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