/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13618876]

Are there any books written by Marxist authors where they are against post modern trash art? All the Marxists I've read are in support of all the terrible modern art being made. Are there any Roger Scruton type leftists?

[Anonymous No.13618890]

read camatte faggot

[Anonymous No.13618900]

>>13618876
let me guess, you're 18, you read the communist manifesto, and you plan to be a mechanical engineering major?

[Anonymous No.13618905]

>>13618900
What makes you think that? Most Marxist academics are like 85 years old.

[Anonymous No.13618921]

>>13618890
What specifically? Searched him up but couldn't find anything about art.

[Anonymous No.13618922]

>>13618876
These are more critical of postmodernism in general but whatever -
Against Postmodernism - Callinicos
The Illusions of Postmodernism - Eagleton
Postmodernism, Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism - Jameson
For a more specific Marxist criticism of (post)modernism, try The Meaning of Contemporary Realism - Lukács, although it's quite old now. He affirms the necessity/value of literary realism over the atomised, individualistic modernist hyper-subjectivitism of writers like Joyce etc.

[Anonymous No.13618931]

>>13618905
Trashing modern art.

[Anonymous No.13618933]

>>13618931
Are 18 years old trashing modern art? Is that a thing?

[Anonymous No.13618937]

>>13618931
Make a Marxist defence of modern art.

[Anonymous No.13618941]

>>13618876
Pretty much all of the Frankfurt School.

[Anonymous No.13618943]

>>13618937
it destroys capitalist notion of what art is and puts the power in the hands of the working class.

[Anonymous No.13618956]

>>13618943
>it destroys capitalist notion of what art is
Elaborate. Why is it capitalist to have a definite notion of what art is? PoMo's rejection of hierarchies, narratives, and structures is explicitly anti-Marxist.
>puts the power in the hands of the working class
How do you explain the frequent, embedded elitism of modern art?

[Anonymous No.13618958]

Marxist art critic is an oxymoron. Great art is about transcendence, and Marxists don't believe in transcendence. They're materialists. An artwork to them is just a cultural product that either challenges or reinforces the status quo. If it challenges the status quo they like it. If it doesn't they don't. It's not a coincidence that the art of the major religions is awe-inspiring and the art of the socialists is dull and obvious. When your attitude toward art is so earthbound, when you see it as just another political tool, your art is bound to suck.

I'm not against political criticism, but I wonder at people who think the political is the ultimate. Great art points beyond. If you look at a great painting and see nothing but human history and power relations, then I'm sorry but you simply don't get it.

[Anonymous No.13618962]

Marxists have no soul, they can't understand art

[Anonymous No.13618971]

>>13618958
>transcendence
Art is social retard. 'Transcendcence' is only ever the development/heightening/exploration of social forms. Your reference to religion is merely cope. No Marxist thinks the political is 'ultimate', this is nearly the reflex of your own '''transcendental''' understanding. Marxists see the 'political' as innate, not 'ultimate'. there's a difference.

[Anonymous No.13619001]

>>13618971
If art is social, why is everyone who likes modern art an anti-social degenerate?

[Anonymous No.13619004]

>>13618956
>Why is it capitalist to have a definite notion of what art is?
I said post modern but I just meant any modern art. Is making art that is free from the bourgeoisie and put into control of the working class not Marxist? I can't remember the quote but if you want me autism into marxists.org I can find it where Marx says a socialist novel would be one that would be free from the modern bourgeoisie novels.
>How do you explain the frequent, embedded elitism of modern art?
Wasn't the intent of the original artists. They didn't think the elite would ever be interested.

[Anonymous No.13619009]

>>13619001
Who said that nigger. Modern art being ideologically questionable does not preclude it's being social.

[Anonymous No.13619021]

>>13619009
Can't be social and anti-social; if art is social, modern art is not art

[Anonymous No.13619023]

>>13619004
Again, your assumption is that modern art is 'free' from the bourgeoisie. But this is patently false. Compare the old proletarian novels to PoMo stuff. Course you're free to just say they were enslaved to bourgeois ideology but given the fact that they inhabited a far more radical milieu than PoMo-era stuff I'm inclined to see that view as reductive.
>intent
Who gives a fuck what their 'intent' was, the author's dead, remember?

[Anonymous No.13619037]

>>13619021
Wtf ignoring my point is not a valid argumentative strategy. I said modern art is social, but ideologically disagreeable. What's not to understand. I'll repeat it for you. Modern art, like all art, is social, but given the objective fact that 'the social' is not a harmonious unity, but a fractured, contradictory series of sublations, the basis of my rejection is that I criticise the specific aspect/origin/fulfillment of its 'socialiness', not it's 'socialness' per se.

[Anonymous No.13619040]

>>13618876
>post modern trash art?
Stop hating on memes anon.

[Anonymous No.13619041]

>>13619023
>Again, your assumption is that modern art is 'free' from the bourgeoisie.
Free from bourgeoisie means two things. One it means free from bourgeoisie conception of what art is and the second is free from needing the capital of the bourgeois to produce art. In regards to the former why wouldn't anything that didn't follow in their conception count as Marxist?
>Who gives a fuck what their 'intent' was, the author's dead, remember?
You can't use the argument modern art is bourgeois just because bourgeois eventually starting partaking in it.

[Anonymous No.13619045]

>>13619040
What meme? I miss old building :(

[Anonymous No.13619047]

>>13618876
You don't want actual Marxists, you want William Morris, greatest of the Victorian English Socialists, and lover of beauty and equality.

[Anonymous No.13619050]

>>13619047
is that your shelf?

[Anonymous No.13619068]

>>13619041
>Free from bourgeoisie
Again, let's assume I concede this point, which I don't, given the fact that modern art is very thoroughly tied in with the bourgeoisie, both 'conceptually', and financially. The fallacy is assuming that art '''free from the bourgeoisie''' is Marxist. Which is false. Perhaps it's lumpen. Perhaps it's something else. It's your burden to prove it as whatever you claim it to be, not my duty to assume it 'Marxist' simply because it's '''not bourgeois''' which again, is a notion I reject anyway.
>You can't use the argument
Except that wasn't my argument. My argument was that your claim modern art's embedded elitism 'doesn't count' because the original artists (whoever they were) 'didn't intend it' is bullshit, becuase the author is dead, by the PoMo's own admission. Incidentally though, what makes you think modern art wasn't bourgeois *to begin with* either?

[Anonymous No.13619074]

>>13618876
there is literally nothing wrong with Rothko's art

[Anonymous No.13619090]

>>13619050
Yes, though the pic's a bit out of date. I did my PhD on Morris, so I accumulated a lot of material.

[Anonymous No.13619093]

>>13618971
>>13619009
>>13619037
Damn, how can one anon be so BASED? An academically tenured expert on Benjamin, Ellul, AND Heidegger--he's a goshdarn triple-threat! I think I saw Frankfurt Anon once in real life at the Met. I was in a crowd, naively "appreciating" some trite paint splatter by Winslow Homer, when he walked up. He was wearing brown slacks, a pair of 7-11 flip flops, and a Member's only jacket from the Goodwill, and I just knew then and there we were all going to get transgressed on. "Heh, y'all only like this 'cause it's a commodified spectacle," sez anon. "I'll be over at the Paul Klee exhibit with the real cultural critics." Then he sauntered away, trying to hide a look of smug satisfaction with one of introspective ennui. I knew he was doing it just to be thorough, to not appear as a hypocrite. But if he did smirk, it would've been justified--he was just THAT dead-on. From that point, I realized my error in not seeing "art" and Art As A Historical Process as one in the same. How foolish I'd been, thinking that I could appreciate a piece of art in-itself! And as Frankfurt anon left, twirling his 256 gb USB 3.0 containing the collected .pdf files of marxists.org (gotta make sure those damn reactionaties and revisonists don't kill the repository of revolutionary theory), I knew that my life hadn't been changed forever, but rather awakened to the immortal dialectical process. Based.

[Anonymous No.13619094]

>>13619037
Anti-social types on the ideological fringes, the embodiment of thanatos, are a glitch of a civilization that produces a suicidal amount of surplus. The social is a harmonious unity, they just aren't a part of it.

[Anonymous No.13619101]

>>13619090
Can you talk a little about him and give some recs if you have the time?

[Anonymous No.13619106]

>>13619068
I'm never going to convince you because we are just gonna be debating definitions so I'm gonna try to find the quote. This might take hours so don't leave

[Anonymous No.13619118]

>>13619093
Don't you worry anon, I was most certainly fingering my arsehole in pure narcissistic ecstasy while wrote my little piece to own the libs and revisionists. But have no fear, I'll be sure to spare a thought for your precious, unassailable art-in-itself next time I'm working on a totally hilarious copypasta as well.

[Anonymous No.13619120]

>>13619068
>Except that wasn't my argument. My argument was that your claim modern art's embedded elitism 'doesn't count' because the original artists (whoever they were) 'didn't intend it' is bullshit, becuase the author is dead, by the PoMo's own admission. Incidentally though, what makes you think modern art wasn't bourgeois *to begin with* either?
We can talk about this in the mean time. If the bourgeoisie got really into common ownership and starting like throwing money into theory and common ownership and starting making facebook posts about common ownership does that now mean common ownership of the means of production is not Marxist anymore?

>what makes you think modern art wasn't bourgeois *to begin with* either?
I'm no art history major but wasn't it just poor marxist retards living on the streets painting red squares for the revolution. How do you take bourgeois out of this?

[Anonymous No.13619122]

>>13619101
My connection is terrible now, so it might not be the best time to try. Arts & Crafts is a way of life, or praxis. And it's a visible praxis, one that transforms one’s surroundings and builds character and community. Morris took an idealized medieval philosophical model and gave it a practical form, through exploring a remarkable breadth of creative endeavor in his life. He was at various times an architect, furniture maker, wallpaper and interior designer, an artist, a lauded writer of poetry, prose, politics and art theory, a leading socialist, co-founder of the second manifestation of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement and of the English Arts and Crafts Movement, a calligrapher and painter, a translator, dyer, glazier, tile-maker, weaver, embroiderer, rug and tapestry-maker, an illuminator and the printer who began the private press movement in England. When Tennyson died, they asked Morris to be the next poet laureate of England, and he refused.

[Anonymous No.13619123]

>>13619094
You're retreating to sophistry. My argument does not relate to the 'anti-social' (what does that even mean) in any way whatsoever. That is purely your conceit. The rest of your shit on the social being harmonious (with the gigantic caveat that it isn't, but the countervailing tendencies 'don't count') is both wrong and besides the point.

[Anonymous No.13619139]

>>13619123
I don't envy people like you, who are too lost in 20c continental paradoxes that lead nowhere, to comprehend the sublimity of the absolute. I have enjoyed imagining your posts being dictated by zizek at least.

[Anonymous No.13619140]

>>13619106
Suit yourself.
>>13619120
A bizarre point on several counts. Firstly, 'common ownership' still isn't necessarily Marxist, as 'common ownership' (a vague term) has existed for several millennia. Secondly, you need to prove the integrality of 'common ownership' to modern art, which you haven't, you've simply retreated to arguing on hypotheticals. Thirdly, I'm curious to know what you even mean by the bourgeoisie 'getting into' 'common ownership', though it's likely this is just a sloppy hypothetical, as you've failed to point out how or why the bourgeoisie COULD 'get into' common ownership, given that you presumably consider that anathema to the bourgeoisie.
>I'm no art history major but wasn't it just poor marxist retards
That certainly happened, but it was after the fact. The fist modernists were bourgeois. Though I admit my knowledge of this is based on literature, not other art forms.

[Anonymous No.13619144]

>>13619122
So Morris believed that “the nature of a society’s applied arts and architecture was a litmus text for its moral health and wellbeing. Poor design and gratuitous decoration were the natural results of a workforce divorced from creative decision-making within the process of fabrication.” He undertook through his own craftsmanship, and arguments based on Ruskin and Carlyle’s ideas, to demonstrate that the quality of design was closely connected with the moral and intellectual attitudes of designer and maker, and the social organization that conditions their relationship. Hence, the poor state of art and design in his day was not only a symptom of all Victorian social problems, but the key to solving them.

[Anonymous No.13619145]

>>13619139
Cope on my good friend, enjoy chasing the eternal for all eternity

[Anonymous No.13619157]

>>13619140
>Firstly, 'common ownership' still isn't necessarily Marxist, a
It's literally what you need for communism? What are you talking about?
>to modern art, which you haven't,
My argument was just because the bourgeois might infiltrate something that's Marxist doesn't' mean it's automatically not Marxist anymore.
>why the bourgeoisie COULD 'get into' common ownership
To be ironic. fashionable. etc.
>The fist modernists were bourgeois
I mean so was Engels.

[Anonymous No.13619175]

>>13619157
>It's literally what you need for communism
My man, my point is that you haven't adequately defined wtf 'common ownership' even means. The further point, implied by my saying CO has existed for several millennia, is that it's not enough for CO to exist ipso facto for something to be Marxist.
>just because the bourgeois might infiltrate something
And my argument was that modern art (particularly as it exists right now, but even from the beginning) is/was not socialist, which I don't think you've really rebutted.
>To be ironic. fashionable. etc.
But this is exactly why I consider modern art not be socialist. Because it's engagement with apparently counter hegemonic themes is dilettantish, ironic, distorted, untrue.
>Engels
True enough, but your problem now is that you need to compare the modernists in some meaningful, Marxist way to Engels.

[Anonymous No.13619201]

>>13619175
>My man, my point is that you haven't adequately defined wtf 'common ownership' even means
I don't need to define. It's the most basic tenet of Communism? Have you read Marx?
>(particularly as it exists right now, but even from the beginning) is/was not socialist,
But we aren't debating if it was socialist we were debating if the bourgeois infiltrating something made it no longer Marxist which I don't think you can make an argument for.
>But this is exactly why I consider modern art not be socialist.
Wait but my argument was that if a inherent Marxist tenet became fashionable to the bourgeois it wouldn't mean it was no longer Marxist. How can you suggest otherwise?
>but your problem now is that you need to compare the modernists in some meaningful, Marxist way to Engels.
No I don't. Your argument was because they were bourgeois that means anything.

[Anonymous No.13619210]

>>13619122
Sounds like a busy man.

[Anonymous No.13619227]

>>13619047
Where do I start with Morris?

[Anonymous No.13619241]

>>13619201
Yes I've read Marx, please don't make such a reddit tier argument. The fact is neither you or I are Marx, you can't just drop terms like 'common ownership' and expect that to be universally understood just because we're both Marxists. Also that 'common ownership' has existed in non-socialist societies, the question is of its proportion to other forms of ownership. The whole point of socialism isn't JUST that we advocate common ownership, otherwise we'd justbe Owenites, but that we want it to the *exclusion* of all other forms.
>we aren't debating if
No that's what you were debating. I was saying that modernism isn't Marxist.
> inherent Marxist tenet became fashionable to the bourgeois
No, this can't just be slipped casually into conversation. Marxist 'tenets' (I dislike this terminology), if they can be called that, do NOT become bourgeois, or even fashionable to the bourgeois (in any widespread sense) if they are indeed Marxist, not for any appreciable length of time. Regardless, my point is that (post)modernism, a movement focused on individual subjectivity, rejection of metanarrative, rejection of hierarchy per se, valorisation of spatiality (over temporality), valorisation of irony, cynicism, etc, isn't Marxist/counter-hegemonic/historically progressive. Or at the very, very least, not *inherently* so.

[Anonymous No.13619244]

>>13619227
Not him, but my fav Morris is A Dream of John Ball.

[Anonymous No.13619249]

>>13619227
I was the other guy asking but I found this.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/index.htm

[Anonymous No.13619252]

>>13618971
>art is social
l’art pour l’art
Anything else is garbage.

[Anonymous No.13619257]

>>13619252
Great rebuttal, materialists owned mate.

[Anonymous No.13619258]

>>13618876
Plenty of the art made in the 20th century was beautiful. Im not a big fan of Rothko but those paintings certainly have an imposing effect irl and a kind of beauty. It does seem like something was lost in the chaos and experimentation, the thread that tied together different eras of art in the West but well Oswald Spengler and all. Art is no longer huge monuments to a civilization, it is more personal, fractured, and ambiguous, but it still has beauty, lots of it, even the stuff made for mass consumption has beauty pretty often.

[Anonymous No.13619263]

>>13618876
Who cares. It is totally predictable what the garden variety Marxist thinks about art. They are in the same camp as religions, mysticisms, and totalitarian political regimes by having a fundamentally instructional view of art, and eschewing any other purpose for it. i.e. They want to get their grubby hands on every single form of cultural expression and make sure it's non-stop beating the drums for da revolushun!!! I mean, just look at this boring, stultifying shit they want art to be:
>>13618922
>the necessity/value of literary realism
>>13618943
>destroys capitalist notion of what art is and puts the power in the hands of the working class
>>13618971
>Art is social retard
>Marxists see the 'political' as innate

Holy fuck... Kill me now. It's no wonder so many of the best Soviet writers and artists were the ones who fucked off or got shelved by the censors.

They simply want to be bureaucrats of cultural life, making sure that everything is instrumentalised in support of their political projects. It's the most mind numbing thing, and as a result no Marxist society seems capable of producing great art.

[Anonymous No.13619273]

>>13619258
>Plenty of the art made in the 20th century was beautiful. Im not a big fan of Rothko but those paintings certainly have an imposing effect irl and a kind of beauty. It does seem like something was lost in the chaos and experimentation, the thread that tied together different eras of art in the West but well Oswald Spengler and all. Art is no longer huge monuments to a civilization, it is more personal, fractured, and ambiguous, but it still has beauty, lots of it, even the stuff made for mass consumption has beauty pretty often.
I ain't seen any beauty lately so please post if you got anything that could convince me.

[Anonymous No.13619288]

>>13619257
It’s an annoying trite argument by literal brainlets that have spent a grand total of 10 minutes reading aesthetic theory in their entire lives. Or any philosophy or literature for that matter.

What’s the point of even arguing that art is an end in itself with someone that thinks politics is the grand sum of human experience?

[Anonymous No.13619292]

>>13619273
just random stuff ive seen in art galleries that I liked, even things that people I know make. I was thinking a lot of popular music, which I like an inordinate amount, though in a different way than art music. Some classical stuff is still being made by randoms that I enjoy, but it is nothing like the music made before 1920ish.

My point is that it's all very broken apart now, you have to just kind of find little shards of beauty, there isn't going to be a Rembrandt or even a Goya anymore, but that doesn't mean there isn't still art being made that means something to people.

Ill try to find a recent painting I liked, give me a minute.

[Anonymous No.13619295]

>>13619074
>>13619258
based
>>13618876
not based. If you're gonna shit on a modern artist at least do the honorable thing and shit on de Kooning. Leave Rothko alone

[Anonymous No.13619299]

>>13619295
looks like me

[Anonymous No.13619300]

>>13619263
> bureaucrats
How do you people not see the irony of making the exact same arguments/accusations over and over and then calling others drones lmao. I couldn't give less of a fuck about your gay attempt at psychoanalysis.

[Anonymous No.13619323]

>>13619288
>grand sum
>Marxists see the 'political' as innate, not 'ultimate'. there's a difference.
you can't even sum up the Marxist argument, it's economics Marxists classically think is ultimate, not politics retard.
Half the time you people don't even seem to think art actually is an end in itself anyway from what I can tell lmao. For you, the value of art is in it's 'transcendence' no doubt. You'll note that is not in fact an end in itself.

[Anonymous No.13619328]

>>13619300
>How do you people not see the irony of making the exact same arguments/accusations over and over and then calling others drones lmao.
Amazing projection, kek. Tell me how I'm wrong. Go on. I'll wait.
> I couldn't give less of a fuck about your gay attempt at psychoanalysis.
Then why did you reply to it, sweety?

[Anonymous No.13619330]

>>13619074
yes there is. i can't argue against it because obvious reasons but its shit and your retarded

[Anonymous No.13619336]

>>13619292
I forgot I can't upload pictures anymore because the alt key on my computer melted from a cigarette ember so i can't right click, but here is a link to a page showing paintings that won a competition, I like the second place prize, the car in the parking lot. The first place has something but I dont like the top of the painting, feels sterile, not just the top of the painting, there is an entire thing missing but it's most evident at the top there. The artist's choice award is also nice.

Don't compare this stuff to famous painters from the past, you will just be disappointed.

[Anonymous No.13619342]

>>13619336
http://www.enpleinairtexas.com/2017-competition-paintings
link

[Anonymous No.13619354]

>>13619323
>Marxists view politics and economics as being inherent separate concepts and not as a system
No anon, I think it’s you that’s never read a single Marxist.

But no. I didn’t say transcendence. I said art for the sake of art alone.

[Anonymous No.13619356]

>>13619328
>projection
Autist.
>kek
Gay.
>Go on. I'll wait.
Cringe.
>sweety
Reddit tier.
I said I don't give a fuck about your gay psychoanalysis because I don't, just like I don't give a fuck about your shit 'jokes'. Enjoy stroking your bellend to the absolute you absolute bellend.

[Anonymous No.13619359]

>>13619356
does bellend mean dick? always liked that insult

[Anonymous No.13619367]

>>13619354
Not to burst your bubble mate but Marxists have viewed politics and economics as autonomous since the 20thC. As is though I don't really care whether you truly do view art as ad end-in-itself or have some 'transcendence' in mind, the notion of art as purely self-contained and self-sufficient is social as well. Simpy by virtue of the fact that, having limited resources, we necessarily find conflict in a society over what art should be. Thus, the attempt to argue for art as end-in-itself (against, say, art-as-propaganda) is a social decision, a decision re the allocation of limited social resources.

[Anonymous No.13619379]

>>13619367
you can paint something in charcoal from your campfire as a hermit in the wilderness and never show it to anyone and it can be art. A large part of art is the artist's relation with his creation and the muse that he seeks.

[Anonymous No.13619383]

>>13619367
Well no. You can’t say “Marxists classically” then say, “20th Century Marxists” like that’s the same thing. Because it’s not.

And you can’t just throw “everything is social” as a catch all because anything someone does in the name of art for the sake of art is to them a complete act. It’s not what you think is art, nobody cares what you think is art. There is no “we”, there’s only the artist as a complete subject, and to him art is purely art.

[Anonymous No.13619389]

>>13619356
>Autist.
>Gay.
Careful, that is some gay psychoanalysis there, comrade.
>Cringe.
>Reddit tier.
Could this be more projection? Can't imagine anything more cringe and Reddit than being an impotent Marxist throwing a feeble tantrum over a takedown of your disgusting mindset, and pretending you "don't give a fuck", lmao.

[Anonymous No.13619395]

>>13619379
I kinda disagree with this desu. I see art proper as relational. Put it this way, are dreams art?

[Anonymous No.13619402]

>>13619395
well no because dreams are not a creation in the external world that evokes the meaning the artist saw, wanted to reach, and did so through creation. The relational aspect of art is just as important, and speaks to the shared understanding of the meaning sought by both artist and audience, but the meaning itself is embedded in the created thing, the work of art. A dream is a purely mental thing, and is ephemeral as such and not external to the self.

[Anonymous No.13619407]

>>13619395
If I make an art piece that no one ever sees is it art? If a computer program makes a painting is it not art?

[Anonymous No.13619408]

>>13619383
This isn't difficult. Classical (19thC) Marxists viewed politics as the mechanistic reflex of economics, 20thC Marxists came to the view that there's a certain autonomy between the two spheres.
>There is no “we”, there’s only the artist
On the contrary, there's never been a historically single-human, isolated society, and for they very reason that we don't learn language, norms, discourse, etc, in isolation. Which makes art social, in that it always has, and always will, exist in a relational form.

[Anonymous No.13619413]

>>13619389
Don't worry comrade you win I'm clearly more reddit than you, have an upvote for enlightening me kind sir.

[Anonymous No.13619418]

>>13618876
>All the Marxists I've read are in support of all the terrible modern art being made


Marxist: commercialisation consists almost entirely of powerful people gaming the system until they are able to sell products no one really wants, but we've been convinced are important and necessary. The inherent value of a product is not reflected in it's price tag yet we are convinced otherwise.


Modern art media: look at this painting with a few lines on it that sold for $15 million! XD

You: omg, why don't Marxists see this as a problem!

[Anonymous No.13619424]

>>13619402
>The relational aspect of art is just as important, and speaks to the shared understanding of the meaning sought by both artist and audience, but the meaning itself is embedded in the created thing
Yes but this sounds like you agree with me desu
>>13619407
I honestly don't think so, not in any meaningful sense. Computer art is only art when we take it and decide to use it as such, but this is an incredibly important discursive gesture.

[Anonymous No.13619428]

>>13619424
>Yes but this sounds like you agree with me desu
Probably semantics then m8. I think the actual object is the art, and its relation to the creator justifies it as such just as much as the relation to the audience. Art is not merely dependent on human interpretation in my view. Some random rock cannot become art because we view it as such, it is specifically the creation of a person seeking something and expressing it in that creation, and as such exists externally in the world as art.

I understand seeing things in another way, but that is how i see it.

[Anonymous No.13619431]

>>13619408
So you’re just restating what I said that Classical Marxists viewed it as a system? Thanks.

>people aren’t rational independent subjects
Please, explain to me how it is that a person is unable to exist as a complete whole into themselves that is experiencing themselves.
The understanding of art for an artist comes wholly within the artist producing art from themselves. Unless you’re going to take a completely ludicrous position like the self doesn’t exist, or the self is knowable to others, this isn’t in any way a valid argument against art for art’s sake.

[Anonymous No.13619437]

>>13619418
You realize modern art wasn't always this way right?

[Anonymous No.13619441]

>>13619428
Probably is then. My only objection is here
>Some random rock cannot become art because we view it as such, it is specifically the creation of a person seeking something and expressing it in that creation
Those two acts could well be one and the same, in that 'expressing something in that creation' could mean something as simple as moving the rock to as display stand or whatever, But yeah that's minor.

[Anonymous No.13619448]

>>13619424
Even if the computer was programmed to create beautiful works of art. If the program created a classical piece by itself and you were told it was Mozart and couldn't tell the difference how would it not be art?

[Anonymous No.13619452]

>>13619441
>could mean something as simple as moving the rock to as display stand or whatever,
That would be our point of disagreement, I don't think the context in which a piece of art makes it not art. You would have to alter the rock somehow, not just alter the relation we have to the rock. It is the act of creation in the external world, with artistic purpose, that I see as essential.

This is something Im pretty set on, but Im not so arrogant to think i couldn't be wrong, so Im not shitting on your views, I just have a different mindset for various reasons.

[Anonymous No.13619454]

>>13619263
>He doesn't know that modernist abstract art is an entirely western development, funded and pushed by the CIA as a counterpoint to Soviet realism

[Anonymous No.13619463]

>>13619452
let me add another thing

The act of moving the rock could conceivably be seen as art in itself, of a very abstract sort, a creation which is the ephemeral construction of a relation between us and the rock that was based on an artistic purpose, but this is very abstract meta-art, the rock itself would not be art, but the act of moving it and presenting it as art. This is plausibly identified with what I see as the common thread linking art together, if the artist really was seeking something and this is the way it occured to them to manifest it, but this could also very often just be social games for status, in which case the 'object', the act itself that is, would not be imbued with the meaning that I believe resides in all art.

[Anonymous No.13619468]

>>13619431
>restating what I said
I was explaining how the Marxist viewpoint of the relation between politics and economics has developed since Marx's time. Yes they're both still a 'system', but the two relate in totally different ways in the two understandings.
>rational independent subjects
This seems ideological in the bad sense. I didn't make any such claim, I merely said that since humans necessarily live in societies, they are social (which is practically a tautology after all). And that to say they are social is to admit the necessity of relationality in our view of the subject. Thus art, as a product of the subject, is also relational. Could you point me to some art that doesn't conform to this criteria? It has nothing to do with the self being 'knowable' to others, I'm not even sure what is meant by that really, since art - and its relationality - isn't predicated on an absolute knowledge of the subject (or between subjects).

[Anonymous No.13619482]

>>13619448
For that to happen someone would have to be framing it as such, building the software/hardware, making the computer do so specifically in a context I could understand, showing it to me, etc. etc.
>>13619452
>>13619463
Fair enough, although once again I don't think we really disagree that much, like here -
>The act of moving the rock could conceivably be seen as art in itself
Isn't 'only' moving the rock altering the rock after all? The claim that not the rock but the movement is art seems to be splitting hairs if you ask me.

[Anonymous No.13619489]

>>13619482
>For that to happen someone would have to be framing it as such, building the software/hardware, making the computer do so specifically in a context I could understand, showing it to me, etc. etc.
Why can't it just be the music itself?

[Anonymous No.13619493]

>>13619482
>Why can't it just be the music itself?
You wouldn't know it wasn't Mozart if they didn't tell you. You would call it art then. Why does simply knowing it was a computer and not a person change anything?

[Anonymous No.13619495]

>>13619468
Because fundamentally it seems to be a disagreement along the lines of something to the effect that “art arises from a social function/material circumstances” and “art is produced by the artist alone”. To imply that you can have knowledge of how the art comes to be (by relation to material social conditions and therefore calling art social) is to imply that you can know the subject themselves. My argument running that the art exists purely in the subject of the artist hence art for the sake of art. If you’re making the argument, “what we deem to be art and not art is social” sure I agree, but that’s not the argument I’m making.

I’d classify anything an artist calls art under this, and exists relationally to everyone but the artist themselves. It’s to be within society, but not of society for the artist.

[Anonymous No.13619503]

>>13619489
This feels like you're asking me 'does a tree that falls in the forest make a sound if no one's there to hear it?'. My response is 'Probably, but by definition the lack of a Subject means it's not Subjectively meaningful, you get me?

[Anonymous No.13619505]

>>13619503
I don't know. I just feel there needs to be a more reasonable justification for saying that wouldn't be considered art.

[Anonymous No.13619512]

>>13618876

>Marxist authors where they are against post modern trash art

such as?

what marxist authors defend modern art?

art died along time ago before the modern era. go read about the dadaists. i think even van gogh wasn't that good.

van gogh killed art in my opinion

[Anonymous No.13619517]

>>13619495
You reject the notion I can claim definitively that art is social because I can't know the Subject, but I disagree. I know the Subject, whatever else, is a social creature. They have social needs, and thus, social functions. Insofar as that is true, and it necessarily is, I can 'know' the Subject. And thus, the art does not exist purely in the Subject, because the Subject them-self does not exist purely in the Subject. To argue by parallel/analogy, you might say that art is necessarily social because it is comprised of symbols, but since a symbol is necessarily a gesture, something that points to something else (as that's how it derives meaning), the symbol is comprised of symbol AND not-symbol, and thus, art is comprised of art and not-art. Similarly (in my opinion), the Subject is comprised of Subject and not-Subject.

[Anonymous No.13619523]

People only like van gogh because he was homeless and led an interesting life. if he had been some boring normie no one would have looked twice at starry night or any of his shitty paintings

[Anonymous No.13619525]

>>13619505
We'll have to agree to disagree I guess, I'm going to bed. Take care man.

[Anonymous No.13619529]

>>13619525
Good night my love

[Anonymous No.13619540]

>>13619505
Gonna add to this incase anyone agrees with his position and wants to talk. If the computer generated classical piece was something that people would have on their iPod and go to shows to see people perform how could you not consider that art?

[Anonymous No.13619559]

>>13619482
Sorry your question provoked extremely fertile thoughts in me and I had to ramble into my word document for 20 minutes, but yes you are right in a sense. It depends on whether you think things exist as real objects that continue to be themselves in different places and times, or whether a thing can only be defined as an ephemeral part of the constant flux of reality.

There we enter quagmires of philosophy, so let's call it a day.

[Anonymous No.13619561]

>>13619517
I mean I feel like at this point we’re just going to end up in arguing endlessly in circles about the subject and how he relates to society, and if being within society necessitates being of society.

You make some interesting points none the less though. I agree that the definition of what art is is relational to society, even that’s not really the core of the argument. But I can leave it on that compromise since I need sleep.

[Anonymous No.13619568]

>>13618943
Until it is commodified by the machine and turned into another cultural product of conspicuous consumption

[Anonymous No.13619570]

>>13619568
I'm a genius I just thought of this. The new marxist art would be going back to the classical roots.

[Anonymous No.13619598]

>>13619559
>>13619561
Yeah I need sleep as well so I'm happy to leave it there, night fellas

[Anonymous No.13619619]

>>13619598
have a good one

[Anonymous No.13619668]

>>13619454
This is such a non argument. Abstract expressionism was a very late offshoot of modernist art (op is a retard to talk about post modern art and accompany it with a picture of Rothko btw). People did abstract art long before Rothko or Pollock; Hilma af Klint, Kupka (was at an exhibit ion, totally crowded, meanwhile no one gives a shit about soviet realism here anymore, but I'm sure it's all just ebul capitalist brainwashing, as always), Ciurlionis, Kandinsky, and so on. People like Zao Wou Ki or Zhang Daqian would pick up on those or others and do what they did regardless of CIA funding Pollock or not.

[Anonymous No.13619717]

>>13619118
u mad tho

[Anonymous No.13619755]

>>13619454
>He reacted mindlessly to someone attacking his rancid ideology instead of reading the post
Let me spell it out for you:
>Marxists have a predictable attitude toward all art
>They reduce art to the question of whether something supports their revolutionary politics or not
>Consequently, who cares what Marxists think about postmodern art, it is already known

[Anonymous No.13619932]

>>13618937
positivism is a key component of marxism and positivism challenges the nebulous, form based thought processes that serve as the foundation for bourgeois life and therefore bourgeois art... the 'subject', at least in a representational sense, is a bourgeois concept as adherence to it as an absolute artistic goal implies a relationship that is not so much logical but emotional... one adheres to the subject representation in art in the same sense that one adheres to traditions or ideals of any sort, that is, out of pure superstition... marxism would seek to enlighten the superstitious reactionary population out of their mental prison of arbitrary concepts and therefor modern art is despised by the bourgeois for this reason.

[Anonymous No.13619949]

>>13619668
>typical brainlet response
Read culture of critique

[Anonymous No.13619961]

>>13618876
>hates modern art
the quintessential midwit

[Anonymous No.13619969]

>>13618876
It's a shitty position imo, but to give an answer: Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectics of Sex (specifically, the chapter that was also included in the Accelerationist Reader).

[Anonymous No.13620080]

what even is post-modern art? Baudrillard talks about Warhol in relation to serialization, that might work for you

[Anonymous No.13620095]

>>13618943
But modern art was literally invented for money laundering purposes and as an ideological weapon against the soviet union?

[Anonymous No.13620451]

>>13618876
try any warsaw pact marxist author. The soviet concept of aesthetics is the direct opposite of western pseudo art. e.g. georgy lukacs is completely against expressionism and the general direction of whole warsaw pact cultural foundation is based on embracing realism. idk whitch marxists you know who on an theoretical level enjoys and embraces the dull and stupid outcommings of the anglo-american hellhole

[Anonymous No.13620636]

"Bourgeois-animism is slaughtered and buried forever by revolutionary butchers of the future."
-Rafiq

[Anonymous No.13620699]

>>13618876
What the fuck does art have to do with Karl Marx?
Stop watching Jordan Peterson vids. It makes young men stupid.

[Anonymous No.13620711]

>>13620699
(...)Oh i didn't answer the question. Guy Debord.

[Anonymous No.13620763]

>>13618958
Marxism is not about political economy. It's about abolishing political economy.
Go visit New York art galleries for your transcendence :s
Personally i like art, if it's not done with the idea of making money.
So i honestly prefer artworks from deviantart than something in a metropolitan art gallery sold half a billion.
Originally, all humans are artists. There is no separation between "artists" and workers. That's why many marxists believe art to be degenerate, because it is something that split from society, which became autonomous, mostly with the idea of making money.

[Anonymous No.13620866]

>>13619454
is this really true? iv only seen it on a marxist blog about Foucault being a CIA plant and the Americans trying to direct leftism away from economics

[Anonymous No.13620885]

literally who cares

life imitates art

[Anonymous No.13620906]

>>13618876
Only retards that know nothing about art say this shit. Making a photo realistic painting isn't impressive, thousands of people can do it, it just takes time. It's a lot tougher to make something that goes against those rules but still evokes the same feelings

[Anonymous No.13620915]

>>13619227
It depends what side of Morris you want, really. His late speeches are great for his political views, and News From Nowhere is his socialist utpoian England (but it's a direct response to Looking Backward: 2000–1887 by Edward Bellamy, so it's best to have read that first). His late medieval-esque romances were big influences on Tolkien and Lewis (and Shaw to a lesser degree).

[Anonymous No.13620931]

>>13620906
>Thinking literary realism is just mechanistic 1:1 reproductionism.
Read Lukács' stuff on the realist 'hierarchy of significance'

[Anonymous No.13620937]

>>13620906
thousands of people can make photo-realistic paintings, but literally any 3rd world retard can make op's painting

[Anonymous No.13620945]

>>13620937
I'd love to see your attempt at a rothko inspired painting

[Anonymous No.13620955]

>>13620945
imagine thinking rothko wasn't a total hack grifter

[Anonymous No.13620980]

>>13620955

rothko paintings are nice
before even imagining or thinking
his paintings are really nice

[Anonymous No.13621006]

>>13620955
Weird for a grifter to kill himself because he felt his fame prevented people from understanding his art. You'd think a grifter would revel in it

[Anonymous No.13621013]

>>13618876
That's a rather strange claim since the party line of essiently every communist party on earth was a dogmatic Socialist Realism for most of the 20th century. You'd probably want to look into Mikhail Lifshitz

"The Philosophy of Art of Karl Marx"
https://rosswolfe.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/mikhail-lifshits-the-philosophy-of-art-of-karl-marx-1931.pdf

His later work "The Crisis of Ugliness: From Cubism to Pop-Art" is pretty much the only thing from the Soviet sphere actually touching on the likes of Andy Warhol from a Marxist-Leninist perspective, surprisingly it wasn't on libgen so I just uploaded it:
https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=4ca816646ce20c4d1e9a0fa7b13d089e

[Anonymous No.13621027]

>>13621006
imagine thinking people kill themselves because of an idea

[Anonymous No.13621030]

>>13621013
Opps, that PDF link seems dead now, so here: https://monoskop.org/File:Lifshitz_Mikhail_The_Philosophy_of_Art_of_Karl_Marx_1973.pdf

[Anonymous No.13621607]

Postmodern art isn't inherently trash, but the idea that it's some kind of purist high ground and not overwhelmingly just a novel offshoot of actual art is laughable. It's so self-evident that I'm not even interested in discussing it. People who discuss postmodern art like there's anything to actually talk about are the most clownish charlatans I can think of, and people who fill their homes with such art are invariably soulless, consumerist frauds imitating real human beings.

[Anonymous No.13621610]

>>13618900
>18, you read the communist manifesto, and you plan to be a mechanical engineering major
literally me

[Anonymous No.13621782]

Adorno, Marcuse etc. besides someone like Benjamin, most of the Frankfurt school and peripheries were dismayed at the undoing of art, the Canon etc. (Particularly Adorno) and unsurprisingly- capital has played a leading role. What is most interesting about Scruton is all that he (in some ways) shares with these thinkers on the cultural topic.

[Anonymous No.13621808]

>>13621782
Not to mention Jameson's explicit critique (seek out, it is alright) - I mean the Marxist line is explicitly anti-modern, and characterises postmodernism as "the logic of late capitalism" - Really have no idea who the "Marxists" you read were

p.s. I am not Marxist, apolitical aesthete, and like Scruton

[Anonymous No.13622410]

>>13618876
>Conflates postmodernism with modernism in two consecutive sentences
>Cannot articulate what's wrong with it or what specific artistic movements he's talking about
>Doesn't know fuck all about how or why this happened
The answer to your question is the Frankfurt School but you've probably already listened to /pol/'s retarded association of them with muh cultural marxism and you aren't going to read any of the suggestions anyway because you're a mouthbreathing retard

[Anonymous No.13622739]

>>13621607
Post more art

[Anonymous No.13622761]

[Anonymous No.13622843]

[Anonymous No.13622853]

[Anonymous No.13622896]

[Anonymous No.13622909]

>>13618876
Rothko isn’t even post-modernist. He was a clear modernist expressionist.

[Anonymous No.13622959]

>>13622410
>Conflates postmodernism with modernism in two consecutive sentences
>Cannot articulate what's wrong with it or what specific artistic movements he's talking about
Don't be a pedantic sperg. "Modern art' is too fucking broad, so people generally lump postmodern art and the more bullshitty regions of modern art into the same category. It's fine.
>The answer to your question is the Frankfurt School but you've probably already listened to /pol/'s retarded association of them with muh cultural marxism
Yeah, critical theory and Marxism totally aren't related at all. Absolutely no evidence of that. It's not like virtually every critical theorist was and still is openly Marxist.

[Anonymous No.13623046]

>>13622959
The Frankfurt School was Marxist, but my point was that they were explicitly railing against all the things you're implicitly railing against. The right side of the internet, not actually reading any of them, somehow chewed up the wikipedia pages of writers like Adorno saying "look at all the awful things capitalism is doing to art" and spat them back out as "look at all the awful things we can do to art with Marxism" and now they're Peterson's "postmodernist" bogeymen. They are the exact people your op was asking for, but have been cast in a drastically different light by dumbasses like you who never read.
>Don't be a pedantic sperg.
Don't be demonstrably wrong in the single brief paragraph you start the thread with. It's not my fault that such elementary mistakes make it clear to everyone reading that you're lashing out at something you never tried to understand in the first place. Learn about art and art criticism then come here to make your shitposts.

[Anonymous No.13623347]

>>13623046
>Don't be demonstrably wrong in the single brief paragraph you start the thread with.
I didn't start the thread. I'm berating you for, despite clearly knowing exactly what OP was talking about, acting like a smug retard, then finding an excuse to drag your /pol/ boogeyman into it, then finding an excuse to disingenuously distance the Frankfurt School from cultural Marxism. As if it really takes a lunatic to think that a pack of ideology obsessed, ivory tower Marxists popularizing methods of interpreting culture that are so heavily critical they inevitably necessitate a systemic upheaval of society that might sorta maybe resemble cultural fucking Marxism.
>muh Peterson too
Just two posts and you're like a wind up toy.

[Anonymous No.13623411]

[Anonymous No.13623620]

hilarious how they always fall for kitsch academicism!

[Anonymous No.13623944]

>>13623347
Cultural Marxism in the sense that the internet right envisions it doesn't exist and never has.
The academics accused of "cultural Marxism," i.e. Adorno and the Frankfurt School, were explicitly against the same degeneration of culture and art that the right whines about. They say it was an inevitable result of capitalism commodifying art and their work mostly centered on explaining this through a Marxist lens. Nearly a century later that message was twisted into them somehow using Marxism to bring about the same degeneration that they were so staunchly opposing.
These are two diametrically opposed forces - the academic Marxists and the mainstream western 20th century art world - that mostly fucking despised each other, but the internet right hates both, so they assume they were in cahoots the entire time. It's an ideologically-induced blind spot.
>Stop being SMUG and PEDANTIC and tell me what I want to hear
If what you're looking for is a polite conversation where nobody calls you a retard for making high school-level mistakes, 4chan is not the place to find it.

[Anonymous No.13623994]

>>13623620
Post some art you like, you sneering faggot.

[Anonymous No.13624020]

>>13623944
adorno constantly attacked the white christian male as authority figure, which is a large part of what the right considers cultural marxism.

[Anonymous No.13624091]

>>13623944
>what is "the authoritarian personality"