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The nexus of art and politics seen through political journals, 1910-40

Art Journal, Spring, 1993 by Virginia Hagelstein Marquardt

The issue of art and politics is the subject of the moment in contemporary art-historical literature and commentary. Critics charge that art-historical scholarship is departing from the issues of values and connoisseurship and is becoming diverted into sociopolitical questions involving the artist's milieu and the means of production, a direction frequently called "Marxist." While the topic "Political Journals and Art, 1910-1940" reflects this trend, it was undertaken with no ideological presumptions, Marxist or otherwise. Instead, it reflects the realization that the period from 1910 to 1940 witnessed war, revolution, economic depression, social unrest, and the rise of fascism. Political activists and artists alike sought some accord between visual image and political content, though for differing reasons. Artists, eager to lend their talents to the furtherance of social goals, especially those of Soviet Russia, or appalled by the chaos of social unrest and personal hardship, willingly imbued their work--both representational and nonobjective--with explicit or implicit political meaning. For their part, political activists, recognizing the appeal and persuasive potential of the visual image, were eager to enlist art in addressing large segments of society.

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This issue of Art Journal focuses on journals, typically monthly publications that supported or were aligned with a political faction or party. The majority of the journals discussed identified with the Left, a designation for liberal political programs that during the twenties and thirties were equated with the Communist Party and its sympathizers, known as fellow travelers. These publications opposed the ideas and programs of the Right, a term for repressive political views and dictatorial governments that during the late thirties became equated with fascism, especially in Spain and Germany. With these parameters, art journals such as L'Esprit Nouveau, Zenit, The Little Review, and Broom did not qualify for this study. The journals Ma |Today~ and Izobrazitelnoe iskusstvo |Fine art~ are included in the discussions by Oliver Botar and Christina Lodder respectively because they were affiliated with the Left and addressed political issues. The other publications discussed in the following essays were clearly political.

The topic is approached by country in order to highlight the specific national factions and artistic responses. Typically, studies of the twenties and thirties adopt an international perspective that focuses primarily on Western Europe and in recent years has included the former Soviet Union. The United States and Mexico traditionally have been studied as isolated phenomena, while East European countries have been viewed as adjuncts to Western Europe (principally Germany) or, to a lesser extent, to Soviet Russia. Given the recent break-up of the Eastern Bloc, I am particularly pleased that two East European countries, Hungary and the former Yugoslavia, are represented in this issue. Irina Subotic's essay on the Yugoslav situation is of particular note. After she had worked diligently on this project for several years, the revolutionary circumstances of the past year made further research, including the securing of photographs, virtually impossible. Consequently, her essay is an overview and is unillustrated. Nevertheless, I am delighted that she has been able to complete it. It may be one of the few works of scholarship to come out of the Balkan region during this period of political strife and civil war.

Since each essay has a specific national focus, international linkages are not stressed. Readers will doubtless find common issues and influences appearing in various countries. The most obvious parallel is the support of Soviet Russia and the alignment with the working class that appears among Leftist publications in every country. Discussion concerning the formal vocabulary and ideological content of the visual arts--the perennial debate between form versus content--occurs between the two poles of Russian Constructivism, with its political association for abstract avant-garde art, in the early twenties and Stalin's program of socialist realism,(1) with its support of representational social-content art and agitprop art, in the thirties. Slogans of "revolutionary art," "proletarian art," "workers' art," and "agitprop" were the passwords of Leftist literature on the arts during these years. Although designating distinct nuances, their distinctions were often blurred. At times, the drive for representational art reflecting the life of the working class and for social-content art strikes an indigenous chord, as in the work of Zemjla artists in Serbia and the tradition of humor magazines in Germany. Unique among the various groups of artists who supported the Communist Party were the Surrealists, who had a tenuous relationship with the Party. After the adoption of the Popular Front, discussion of the appropriate formal style of art more closely reflected the Party's backing of socialist realism.

The nexus of art and politics seen through political journals, 1910-40

Art Journal, Spring, 1993 by Virginia Hagelstein Marquardt

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