Open Thread: Part Two: Design and Art out and inside revolutons.
So last week I talked about the Russian Constructionists who opened my eyes artistically as an art student of the graphic type in the 80's with a traveling show that came to LA. This week I'm taking on the sequel to the Russian prole artistes who did it good. Here's some famous fine artists who crossed over due to who knows what and applied their skill to portraying ordinary people in real life instead of money for god sake. One of my first drawing hero's who in later life portrayed ordinary people.
Here's Rembrandt
Here's another fine artiste
Here's another fine art masterpiece that deals with the same thing were dealing with now as far as war goes.
What's next? Well how about the art from the American progressives the real progressives who actually fought for the workers and the people in the 1890's through the the 1920's. So I googled that art wise. I got nothing just really ugly art. No wonder an artist like me or other artists go back to the Russians. Hey I'm not a commie but I'm a fellow traveler and I sure know good or bad art when i see it. They should have got some visual artist's they did have some great song writers. Maybe Jay Raye knows about the visual or graphic artist's who lent a hand in this era.
So on to the art political graphic and fine of the 30's. Ah surely they had some fine inspiring peoples art. The WPA art comes shining through.. the master...
My favorite WPA artist and Jack the Drippers (Jackson Pollack) mentor and teacher Thomas Hart Benton.
this artist is so great.
Here's a new to me lefty socialist artist named William Gropper who worked during the 30's -70's. McCarthy's committee went after him in the 50's. He refused to testify and kept doing art till the70's.
1934 poster
One more Gropper
Whew if nothing else I'm learning about American artist's of the political bent from the early 20th to Mid century. Ah I forgot an artist from the WPA era whose not American but from Mexico, Diego Rivera. He painted the famous Detroit Industry mural and court.
Detail
Have a good day all my caucus 99% friends
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So thankful to you ...
when I am feeling better I will look at the art you showed us here. Gets me crying today, because I watch my son finding a life rescue ring in his timid engagement into music.
Right now, I just want to say that I recommend to listen to Varoufakis interview on Democracy NOW today. I need to wait for the transcript. He also was with Chomsky last Tuesday in a discussion in a public library in NY and Noam Chomsky: Bernie Sanders is Not a Radical, He Has Mass Support for Positions on Healthcare & Taxes . Have to search for it. I had the feeling I understood some aspects of what is going on between EU, US, Germany and France. I will look out for Varoufakis' new book. Hopefully I don't pack it in a box to be read in the future.
Good day to you all.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Heard that too mimi, was an excellent interview.
Keep your spirits up. Mine have been where yours are for the past two days. Today I'm nice and fed up again, filled with positive mental energy and enthused about the great possibilities so apparent in front of us. We'll keep the electoral fight going, but more importantly, let's use this incredible energy as the impetus to organize locally, connect with like-minded folks to form solidarity groups. We did so locally after OWS, and the time and circumstances are even better now to grow this movement big-time.
Was thinking of organizing something locally, and this seems right in the vein:
Here's the DN videos:
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
How about the American photographers of the 30s
Dorothea Lang, Berenice Abbot, and Lewis Hines. And the Harlem Renaissance artists Romare Bearden and photographer James Van der Zee. And I know timewise we're not there yet but Warhol's soup cans can be seen in a political context and most of the work of his protege Basquiat is way political.
mbeitchman I'm getting to them in Part 3 and 4
As a child of the 60's I know and lived that art street and fine. Thanks for the suggestions. I have left out photography as I'm focusing on painting, murals, drawing, design and graphic art. It's a strange line between fine and the authentic peoples art.
The photographers from the WPA era we're amazing. I worked in the corporate world doing commercial art, mainly in retail, hawking jeans for the Gap and Macy's etc. I am a pragmatic artist one who likes art that has a purpose other then making big bucks off the investors and collectors.
I love pop art including Andy and others. He was one of my hero's as he toiled in the retail industry before he did his soup cans. So thanks again and I will certainly use both Andy and Basquiat. Their tradition lives on. I'm learning as I go with this series as it's approaching a blurred line of art history that still continues. MB once did a dairy dealing with OWS art and I am trying to get to where he started.
I started as an art major back in the mid-60s, I wanted to be a
graphic designer, but got side-tracked by life. 20 years later I went back and got a masters in Art History, and spent over a decade as a museum registrar, first at China Institute and then at the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC. I'm as much into fine art as I am into craft, prints, photography, outsider art, graffiti, sculpture, site-specific public art, mail art, and fashion.
Its interesting how the line between high and low is more or less determined by the market (the collectors). In grad school I had to write a historiography of a famous painting from first exhibition to last sale. I wrote about Renoir's Bal au Moulin de la Gallette, which was totally panned, critiqued as garbage when it was first shown, and was sold at auction for something like $19 million about a century later. Innovative artists from the late 19th c. on are all radical in the sense that their creations can be seen as a form of rebellion against the art that came before it, and a reflection of the times.
Here's my local OWS art.
There is a wonderful Benton mural set
in the old Auditorium at Indiana University, Bloomington. Almost made me proud to be a Hoosier.
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.
hi, shah
Here are some I have here on the walls.
Dance of Country People, Peter Paul Rubens.
Song of the Lark, Jules Breton.
Flower Girl in Holland, George Hitchcock.
oh yeah
And this one, untitled, from Scott Mutter.
That one is pretty fantastic. A title would just
derail its scope.
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 --
i agree
I can stare at that thing all day.
Wow! thanks Hecate
You seem to have figured out what I'm trying to do. Your an amazing person for a man and all around humanist who I so love and admire.
These I love!
Especially the Breton.
yes
That's my favorite of the three. She's a peasant girl. And life is hard. But it's okay. Because she is a lark ascending.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIDwK0mJPFs]
Good stuff. There is some Diego Rivera and similar on the walls
inside Coit Tower in SF.
You didn't have an Open Thread tag - you might add it, not everybody knows to look for you in the mornings.
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 --
no tag? I remember typing it
I saw shaz hadn't added that, so I did. I'm sure I saved it too. Oh well, we were having glitches all night.
another work
I consider revolutionary. It is a Magritte, and it is called Homesickness. Back when I had to work in an office, it kept me sane.
Benton is one of my faves
We have a Benton like mural in our PO. I thought I had a photo, but couldn't find it. Here's a couple of others I like:
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Afternoon, Shaz.
Took me a while to find this and I'm glad I
did. Great art is good for the soul.
I agree with el - this piece needs an Open
Thread tag. Also any idea why it's not
showing up at the top of the right-side
column (where I was looking for today's
OT)?
Only connect. - E.M. Forster
This is such a nice idea, doing art open threads
Goes along well with the music ones. Thanks for sharing these with us.
Stay on track. Stay in lane. Don't throw rocks.
Agree with, Miep. This would be a nice series--thank you
for the lovely art, Shaz! (and others)
(If this is a duplicate post, my apologies. I thought that I posted a comment here, earlier, but don't see it now.)
Hey, have a nice afternoon, Everyone!
Mollie
Chris Hedges, Journalist/Author/Activist, Truthdig, 9/20/2015
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Thoroughly enjoying these
- also a big fan of Benton's work.
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” -Voltaire
so many arts I love
but this is one of my faves
Remdios Varo
Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation
Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook
Love these art Open Threads, Shaz
Benton is a favorite of mine. There is so much wonderful art out there for all of us to enjoy. The liberal arts education has been de-emphasized in our technical world, but the arts are what make us human. The liberal arts are what make us critical thinkers. We must ensure the arts survive. Thank you so much for emphasizing art in you Open Thread. I hope you will continue to do so in the future too.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
I am going to continue
and thank you Nancy. Your opinion means a lot to me. It's weird hooking up my art life with my political one but I am enjoying it as life is political and art music and all the humanities are human expression and a tie that binds with the exception of Adobe which is a soul killing geek mechanical version of creativity. . We sure do need to see what humans create with their hands, spirits and minds then and now.