Open Thread- Some populist art and design 1946-1956

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Shah told me that in pop music the breakdown goes '46--'63 so I'm halving this as a framework. After WW11 the populist underground type of art got real noir and sensationalist. Since this era was about Mac McCarthyism and ramping up the cold War it makes sense that it was dark. I like walking in the the dark side better then the America dream mainstream insipid illustrators and graphic art of this time.

This series has taught me a lot as I was not old enough during this time to visually grasp more then the bottoms of my parents drapes and the hideous upholstery. Hope you like this as it seem too esoteric to be of much interest and it's not about politics per say. And yet it is. A exploration of art/design that is hard to pin down as it has nebulous boarders that bleed across the lines I know and have established. So this is a highly subjective view with some objectivity added by Google/Pinterest who are the arbitrators and keepers of what is relevant and worthy and then tell you what protest art is through the len's of google glasses. This quote from a helpful article sums up my feeble attempt here

http://www.timeout.com/london/art/art-and-politics-of-the-cold-war

Artists are not anti-government agents or suppliers of counter-information, and those who set out to destabilise or resist using such obvious, reactionary means will usually be shot down before their message is heard. This is because those who adopt the direct techniques and shock tactics of politicians – whether it’s Banksy’s cod-protest art or Peter Kennard’s graphic, sloganeering posters – can be dismissed as mere propagandists or political agitators. However, the truly political artist can insinuate and subtly subvert opinion without sledgehammer sermons, engaging the public consciousness on a deeper level and infiltrating the lifeblood of culture. Politics in art is still possible; in fact, in this age of apathy it might soon become vital.

'Protest' Art Cold War Style according to Google

Before the WW11 had even ended the Cold War was being heated up and the propagandists were hard at work. the Abstract Expressionist's hit the floor. The CIA sponsored tours of the world of the biggie famous painters and artists. There works were taken on tour globally as propaganda against the rotten Dr.Commie Rat's worst evil ever, better believe as it they are coming soon to a theater near you. This art proved that good old cappie freedom created individualism made great artists even if it looked like something out of a vacuum bag. They fought the Soviet Unions hideous social realism with Jack the Dripper. Take that you commie hack painters of bad art. These artist's made New York City and the Cedar Bar the headquarters of the Ab Ex movement.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-157880...

Jackson Pollack smaller version.jpg

Here's a lover of women De Kooning. /s His wife another ab ex artist Elaine de Kooning was the artist speaker at my Otis Parson graduation event during the punk revival of ab ex and the Constructionists Russians in the 80's art shool types.

images de koonings woman_0.jpg

They were so all Existential and full of Jungian Angst

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_expressionism

American social realism had been the mainstream in the 1930s. It had been influenced not only by the Great Depression, but also by the muralists of Mexico such as David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera. The political climate after World War II did not long tolerate the social protests of these painters. Abstract expressionism arose during World War II and began to be showcased during the early forties at galleries in New York such as The Art of This Century Gallery. The McCarthy era after World War II was a time of artistic censorship in the United States, but if the subject matter were totally abstract then it would be seen as apolitical, and therefore safe. Or if the art was political, the message was largely for the insiders.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-157880...

Have to say I was happily surprised to learn that Pablo Picasso, another 'lover' of woman, was not such an asshole as I had formerly thought. Even though I knew right away that he was as good as the Beatles. During the post war period he lent his hand to peace groups and did not go on the CIA tour.

http://www.timeout.com/london/art/art-and-politics-of-the-cold-war

Pablo Picasso began to lob back the odd intellectual grenade, hoping to explode the myths of ‘victory at any cost’ being espoused by both warring sides. First, Picasso depicted the human suffering of war in his legendary composition of dismembered figures, ‘Guernica’, which was painted over a couple of months in 1937 when he was supposed to be in London giving a lecture at the Royal Albert Hall. When asked by a Nazi officer, ‘Did you do that?’ of his famous picture, Picasso replied, ‘No, you did.’ Not long after, the artist was marked out as a left-wing radical, even though his depiction of a white dove – initially used in advertisements for huge socialist rallies – was widely adopted as a new symbol of peace.

Picasso scarf 1951 for students for peace

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Picasso's Peace Dove series
Picasso's Dove of peace #2.jpg

Picasso's Cove of Peace.jpg

Pulp covers and comic covers New York Style

On the populist level here in der Homeland the commercial art and graphics Betty Cocker'ed out. Consumerism along with American values post war prevailed. However underground or out in plain view in this McCarthy era of censorship and a vision of American life that was so squeaky clean it dazzled there was a lot of fine art going on.

The pulps both comics and paperbacks were the graphic and literary seamy side of the post war and 1950's. this was the heyday of pulps despite the censorial prudish government and establishment who tried to shut them down. They were spoiling the youth and causing a breakdown in law and order. good on them I say and good on the artists who toiled often anonymously to keep body and souls alive in NYC just like the Ab Ex'er who hung out in the Cedar Bar did.

78f4d52153914fa6dccf6f332b03ac02 More Shena.jpg

6923162e85852ca9c7a7561bed8f780c cover by nobody 1952 Jim Thompson.jpg

This artist did 880 covers for pulps. His name is Rafael De Soto.

7c19a47f96f65bbf7f5e8eb448fff6eb better de Sto.jpg

Have a good day all of you cc99%'ers. Next up 1956- 1966. The beginning of Elvis the Pelvis's accent and the death of Jackson Pollack aka Jack the Dripper.

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kharma's picture

Got this survey this morning and let my feelings be known.
http://go.turnoutpac.org/page/s/post-primary?source=MS_EM_SHARE_X_X_post...
Might make zero difference but who knows?

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There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties.. This...is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.--John Adams

riverlover's picture

He was probably the epitome of shiny hopeful friendly people. The Way it Used to Be. I had to check: Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses, to be full name-giving) also burst onto the scene then in primitive (=never taught) paintings that reflected that same and previous sunny or snowy days at the time. Happy, happy. Family, family. I have a pastel done during that time by my crazy great aunt. Nice bathroom art, when it is in my possession.

I can't separate wall art from functional art. Shaz, this is most of the time frame of Mid-century modern design? I can see how new with no historical (therefore political) context would be allowed to flourish. I am still stuck there personally, clean lines, parallels, occasional swoops.

Much to think about. I will be checking out this thread. I do like the Picasso doves and Guernica? What can one say? Socks you in the face. Height of Le Corbusier was in there, he was relieved and sad the War was over. His church in Ronchamps is a new modern statement. No historical reference points.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Lookout's picture

and the other pieces. Interesting how some people are driven to produce art in all its forms.

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Art is a great way to protest. I guess it's time to get out our paints, instruments, props, etc. and raise some hell.

Thanks for the fun essay!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

mimi's picture

I hope this will be saved with its special series link. Also think gulfgal's neo-liberalism series should get its own series link. On the right hand side.

Good Morning, Shaharazade.
My mind can't focus on art right now. Shame on me, I know, my apologies.

I will use this OT to dump the political news stories I like to share eventually during the day. If that is ok.

Have a good day, all.

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shaharazade's picture

Glad you liked it mimi. Looking at another era's art and politics kind of cheered me up yesterday in a weird way. Same as it always was. I thought of you when I used the Brecht song by the Doors.

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hanging in my dining room. I love it.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Thank you for the open thread Shah, propaganda was one of the tags, Her Majesties' supporters claim every revelation is nothing more than witch hunt CT. Since Lieper does a special blog for this site, I was surprised that the following appeared on his site, but not here? Please remove this comment if it breaks site rules or can be debunked.

This piece explains why I was deemed worthy of a time out in another discussion forum. I dared to go there. This is from a comment with a link written by Eagles 92.

http://theprogressivewing.com/its-time-to-go-there/

http://www.ninaillingworth.com/2016/06/01/the-foggy-bottom-of-clintons-m...
The Foggy Bottom of Clinton’s Muddy Waters
By Nina Illingworth June 1, 2016
….snip
For the sake of brevity, I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this, you have by now already taken a look at the State Department Inspector General’s report about Hillary Clinton’s private email server. While at this point you can find any number of reasonably critical examinations of the report and what it means all around the internet; I’m of the opinion that if you really want to understand why we’re so utterly fucked now – you have to read the actual report (at the bottom) itself, which is unfortunately eighty-three pages long. If nothing else, the tone and language of the official document alone should make it exceptionally clear to you that something very, very bad is about to happen to Mrs Clinton and her campaign.
The simple truth is that Clinton is guilty, just as she has always been guilty and the only goddamn reason you haven’t heard about it is because mainstream, neoliberal media is both too fucking lazy to read documentation and too committed to the Imperialist cause – they’ve openly been campaigning for Hillary since at least last summer. There has literally never been any question of Clinton’s guilt in the mind of any neutral observer who’s actually read about the details involved in the case so far; the only real question has been “will President Obama risk his legacy by protecting Hillary from his own Attorney General?”
…snip
The FBI is, like virtually every single fucking organization infested with law enforcement officers – a primarily Republican-controlled body. The current head of the FBI, James Comey is also a Republican and in fact served as the United States Deputy Attorney General under George W. Bush; keep that in mind by the way, it’ll come up later when we’re taking at look at the lose-lose choice facing President Obama and current Attorney General, Loretta Lynch.
…snip go to link for entire article, there is more, much more.

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Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. Stephen Hawking

shaharazade's picture

I haven't had my coffee yet so I'm just getting my eyes open. I'll go read the article when I wake up. The supporters of The Mad Bomber claim all the Clinton's criminal enterprises and maleficence are a 'vast right wing conspiracy'. At the GOS Iwas constantly accused of using RW talking points if I spoke of what was in those emails or talked about her war crimes as SoS. It's assbackward's politics when everything is about the optics of the internecine kabuki show of red vs. blue. Thanks for stopping by. CT my ass. Your going to like not having to tip toe around the truth or worry about expressing yourself here at cc99%.

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hecate's picture

That Thompson novel is seriously creepy.

I think it's pretty eerie that the pop pranksters at Mad pre-envisioned George II all the way back in the 1950s.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW0ltBjF_Q4]

Picasso said in the '50s: "When Matisse dies, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is."
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Politics, always it huffs and puffs, until it crawls off into a corner, and expires. Rinse; repeat. While art, it abides.

Like Philip Whalen wrote:

I praise those ancient Chinamen
Who left me a few words,
Usually a pointless joke or a silly question
A line of poetry drunkenly scrawled on the
margin of a quick splashed picture—
bug, leaf, caricature of Teacher
on paper held together now by little more
than ink & their own strength brushed
momentarily over it
Their world & several others since
Gone to hell in a handbasket, they knew it—
Cheered as it whizzed by—
& conked out among the busted spring rain
Cherryblossom winejars
Happy to have saved us all.

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riverlover's picture

Words are committed here, some in good style with luck with meaning to others like art. There is more of both. Some Others decide what is pretty, striking, profound, earth- or style shattering. But many words that mean nothing to anyone, might as well have been a nod or look away.

I like that poem. Wink

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

hecate's picture

are art.

Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food howl on!

That's art.

Jerry Brown, he once said: "I learned more from 'Fire and Rain,' than from four years at Yale." He also said "the art of politics," that is an oxymoron.

Back in the day, it was said: "Art is just a dog on Neil Young's porch."

Here's another Whalen poem. From the '50s. It's called "Further Notice."

I can't live in this world
And I refuse to kill myself
Or let you kill me

The dill plant lives, the airplane
My alarm clock, this ink
I won't go away

I shall be myself—
Free, a genius, an embarrassment
Like the Indian, the buffalo

Like Yellowstone National Park.

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shaharazade's picture

that Thompson novel years ago. It was so creepy I had to put it on the front porch as I could not go to sleep with it in the apt. Same with Stephan King's The Shining. . Never did read either of them and I'm a huge pulp fiction fan. I did like Kubrick's movie version it was so over the top visually.

studio_sins_of_the_father Jim Thompson paper back cover.jpg

Earlier Jack the Dripper, before he went totally Ab Ex.

pollockoval432 early Jackson Pollack.jpg

Japanese 50's comic book cover.

Japanese pulp covers 1950's.jpg

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hecate's picture

didn't miss anything, eschewing the King novel. A lot of the film's finest moments aren't even in the book.

There's a good French film, Coup de Torchon, based on another creepy Thompson novel, Pop. 1280.

Someday somebody with real grit will film a version of Thompson's The Getaway that includes the final third of the novel.

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shaharazade's picture

for the beautiful comment. I love painting and drawing bugs. The poem says it all.

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shaharazade's picture

a beat poet from Portland. nice. In the next addition I'm doing the Beatnik artists, so I'll put him in.

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hecate's picture

of Portland, Lew Welch and Gary Snyder roomed with Whalen at Reed. Snyder lives up the road here. Welch, he controls large parts of my mind. Here's one from him:

I saw myself
a ring of bone
in the clear stream
of all of it

and vowed,
always to be open to it
that all of it
might flow through

and then heard
"ring of bone" where
ring is what a

bell does

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hecate's picture

for this series. When you reach the present moment, you could get in a time machine, and go back to Lascaux, and then come forward again. ; )

Lascaux2.jpg

I like that you love to paint and draw bugs.

What I like best about the county fairs are the exhibits of art from schoolchildren, up through the end of high school. There is so much talent there! But because there is no reward in commerce for such things, in order to not live in a cardboard box and eat out of trash bins, all but the bravest must needs stray away from the art, and enter the machine. That makes me sad. There is so much beauty in people. I wish it were more encouraged.

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MarilynW's picture

I'm proud to be part of such a long long long tradition.

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To thine own self be true.

mimi's picture

NEW NATION, LONG WAR - Hillary Clinton’s State Department Gave South Sudan’s Military a Pass for Its Child Soldiers - by Nick Turse

Rebel forces in southern Sudan began using child soldiers long before seceding from Sudan in 2011. The United States, on the other hand, passed a law in 2008 that banned providing military assistance to nations that use child soldiers. The law was called the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, or CSPA, but after South Sudan’s independence, the White House issued annual waivers that kept aid flowing to the world’s newest nation despite its use of child soldiers. President Obama stated in 2012 that the waiver that year was in “the national interest of the United States.”

Because of the requirements of the law, the waivers were issued by the White House rather than the State Department, so Obama was the target of most of the criticism.

Clinton had spent years vowing to defend the rights of children worldwide — in 2012, she railed against “modern-day slavery” in the introduction to a State Department report on human trafficking that took aim at the “unlawful recruitment or use of children” by armed forces. Yet she does not appear to have publicly explained her role in allowing South Sudan and other countries to receive military support despite using children as combatants. In fact, the State Department played a central role in issuing the controversial waivers, according to two sources, including a former State Department official.

Until now, however, there has been little of mention of Clinton’s handling of South Sudan. With strong U.S. support, South Sudan became an independent country while she was secretary of state — and soon spiraled into a disastrous civil war that involved large numbers of child soldiers.

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triv33's picture

When I think of the post-war era, I always think of Paul Rand, I know it's commercial, but he did have a huge influence. From book covers to advertising, to movie posters, he was everywhere!

This morning I went to Dan's school to pull prints with his class. They're only six students, all special needs, but they really enjoyed it. I took my gelli plate, paint, stencils, and rollers, and each one of them was able to make a print they were proud of. It's Dan's last year in that school, so I really wanted to make sure it was a fun project for them, and I think we succeeded.

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I shave my legs with Occam's Razor~

shaharazade's picture

the commercial artist's names. Paul Rand did have a huge influence in that era. I quickly found that the line between 'fine' art and commercial art was blurry when I started doing this series. I was a commercial artist I majored in advertising design and have great respect for the designers and illustrators who's work is relegated to 'commercial'. I like art that people see in their lives. I used to love to see the Sunday newspaper inserts I had worked on blowing around the streets on Monday morning while walking to work. Speaking of multiples and printed art pulling prints with kids sounds fun and rewarding.

a poster from 1948 I have no idea who did it.

1948 poster_0.jpg

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Shahryar's picture

Here's a cover for The Fabulous Clipjoint, which was published in 1948. Shaz and I were looking at all of these pulp covers and I came across this one, then couldn't remember what it was called. "The Fake Nutjob" was the best I could do. Went to bed, woke up and recalled the title easily. I wonder why that is. Why is something "on the tip of or tongues" and we just can't get it....until we're not trying? It must be a Zen thing.

brownfother09fabulous_clipjoint.jpg

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hecate's picture

many Science Men theories as to the nature and purpose of dreams. One is that they process information taken in during the day. That can account for arising knowing something that was elusive when settling into sleep.

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enhydra lutris's picture

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

shaharazade's picture

with my grandaughter and I'll be back later. Forgot one song I meant to put in the artsy OT.

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MarilynW's picture

He drew/painted 17 versions before he was satisfied.
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This great anti-war painting was the basis of a tapestry which hangs in the United Nations. It hangs behind a podium that was used by all the Bush hawks declaring that Iraq had WMD. The irony was lost on many. Picasso rolled over in his grave.
Screen Shot 2016-06-09 at 12.21.36 PM.png

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To thine own self be true.

MarilynW's picture

the tapestry to be covered with a blue cloth for Powell's next BS on WMD.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/02/guer-f08.html

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To thine own self be true.

hecate's picture

were always covering shit. Ashcroft threw a shroud over the Spirit of Justice. Her breasts he believed a temptation of Satan.
01-29-statues.jpg

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