The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Re: Marcuse and Art

Re: Marcuse and Art
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Monday, February 28 2011, 0:17:32 (UTC)
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this is the seeming paradox...that tyrants, dictators,kings, princes, popes and the like, can be very good for the Arts whereas in democracies the tastes of the Mob eventually rule.

Am older lady art buyer who used to make an annual buying trip to East Berlin complained that after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reintegration of the East into the wildly capitalistic West, the quality of art dropped way down...and the prices went way up.

When she told of this a few of her German artist contacts in the East said that under the old communist regime there was hardly any monetary pressure to produce art...one fellow she used to purchase from would make his own paper, write poems to print on his own hand-made press, illustrate and bind the books himself...she said they were lovely works of painstaking art of which he could barely produce ten a year...which she bought at reasonable prices which satisfied all his needs for that year and allowed a handsome mark-up so she could afford to live and travel to and from New York to Europe and these shopping trips.

But, with freedom and democracy came capitalism...rents were no longer controlled, there were no subsidies for the Arts, everyone had to scramble to pay rent every few weeks and to buy those now expensive imports which would form the basis for the wealth and prosperity of a rising upper class....in short, Modern Art was born!!!!

Art that could be produced quickly, cheaply, art that could be dripped, splashed, poured, splattered...quick strokes "bold" lines..."vivid" colors...all metaphors for down and dirty, any way you can, any bullshit you can invent to sell...any hype but above all FAST cause they now had RENT TO PAY!

I've dropped sculpture, and before tossing it out, or re-molding it, contemplated how I could call the thing "Man Lost for Eternity"....." Headache from God"...or some other bullshit and make it seem like I'd been inspired, instead of clumsy. And the funny but scary thing thing is I could pull it off...as many have.



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