Unmade Beds and Pickled Fish: What should socialists say about Contemporary Art?

This week's meeting was on Contemporary Art. Here's one comrade's view of
the talk and discussion. Enjoy!

When I first became involved with socialist politics, I brought with me an assumption that a socialist future would be drab, utilitarian and without much time for, or interest in, art and culture. This is an idea that many outside the left might have of socialism, perhaps inspired by the hauntingly grim brutalist architecture of Stalinist Russia and so many British towns and city centres, uniform in their blank functionality and frequent ugliness.

This myth is just that. An important belief of many of my new comrades was that in a socialist society, where the focus was not on creating a surplus to maintain a capitalist class there would be more space and time for the arts rather than less – became increasingly solidified in my mind. Art and culture are frequent subjects of our meetings, and art and cultural reviews feature prominently in the party’s monthly magazine, Socialist Review.

The meeting of Thursday 15 August was a particular treat as we heard from one of our branch members about their passion for contemporary art. Sue shared with us one of her passions and asked whether, as socialists, we should engage with contemporary art.

The talk began with a definition of contemporary art and Sue suggested that the best definition which she could find was that offered on the website of the Baltic Art Gallery, Gateshead:

What does ‘Contemporary Art’ mean? It means that the art belongs to the present day. A contemporary artist is alive today and makes art works to show in galleries and public spaces. Unlike modern art, contemporary art is not defined by a list of schools of art, time periods or styles of art. 

The talk focused on looking at some key contemporary art of the past hundred years, starting with Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (1917) and posing the question as to why it shouldn’t be considered art. Sue suggested that whilst we often focus on the artistic movements which began in the 60s and 70s as representing the beginning of contemporary art, it was in fact as early as Duchamp that the idea was first formed that something which you have picked up could be art and presenting everyday items in new lights and from new perspectives could be artistic in itself.

We were shown some of the controversial pieces and had an opportunity to find out more about some of these as well as to simply look at them in new ways. There seemed consensus in the room that ‘The Fountain’ was beautiful, though some pieces were more controversial and split opinion. A particular favourite of mine was the opportunity to see in close up a section of a three dimensional model which was closely inspired by Goya’s ‘Disasters of War’ No. 39. Seeing a close up image of a section of the Chapman brothers’ model of the same name, alongside an image of Goya’s original, was quite striking and gave a sense of the newness in terms of material and innovation but the sense of tradition and continuity which ties contemporary art to its predecessors.

Goya

Chapman (cont. p94)

Another favourite piece of mine was the Marc Quinn sculpture made using the artist’s own blood. As Sue pointed out the process of continuous renewal which is required as a result of the chosen medium, and the link between the sculpture and the tradition of death masks, I was able to see the connection between this new and perhaps shocking piece of work and the tradition of sculpture which had come before. The challenge to notions of how much you put into your own art was combined with a beautiful and compelling piece of art. In fact, one of the key arguments of Sue’s talk was that in spite of the sensational aspects of much of contemporary art, the major themes which have always been in art continue to inform contemporary artists’ work in much the same way. Self-portraits, reactions to war and questioning conceptions of beauty were shown to be key factors in contemporary art as much as more traditionally accepted art forms. We also looked at some of the attempts to blur the boundaries between crafts and fine arts and everyone was in agreement that Grayson Perry’s ‘We’ve Found the Body of Your Child’ (2000) was a thought provoking and beautiful piece of art, full of ambiguity and wonder.

Grayson Perry, We've found the body of your child, 2000

Having explored some of the themes of contemporary art in this way, Sue moved on to explore the political nature of contemporary art. Looking at Rachel Whiteread’s holocaust memorial in Vienna and the negative impressions of houses which were demolished around them, Sue showed us that contemporary art is often linked to the wider political climate. Deller’s ‘Battle of Orgreave’ (2001) is a photograph of a re-enactment of the infamous confrontation where the police attacked a mass picket during the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike. This piece has a clear political element to it, as do Harvey’s ‘Maggie From White Riot’ (2009) and ‘Myra’(1995).

However, whilst there are some challenging and politically engaged examples of contemporary art, there are some artists and examples of work, particularly amongst the ‘Young British Artists’ which were shown to be right wing and capitalist in their approach. In many ways, Sue was able to show us that this group were very much Thatcher’s children and had benefitted from the patronage and investment of members of the nouveau riche such as Charles Saatchi.

Sue opened the discussion up about whether contemporary art is right wing and what view we may take of it as socialists, leaving the image of Hirst’s ‘For the Love of God’ (2007) looming down at us from the screen at the front.

A lively discussion ensued as to whether there is any value for socialists engaging with contemporary art given the commoditisation and right wing nature of some of this art but given the political engagement which some of it embodies. In the end, though opinions were split; it seemed we could all agree that to some extent, as with all art, personal engagement with the individual piece based on its aesthetic and contextual appeal would determine which art we liked and which art we reacted strongly against.
Whilst our speaker was a clear fan of Tracey Emin’s earlier work, for example, and was able to talk about the power of the famous self portrait ‘My Bed’ (1999) to be both very personal and self-obsessed but to translate to all women nonetheless, she was also very critical of her later works including ‘More Passion’ which was gifted from Emin to David Cameron and reflects perhaps a betrayal of earlier ideas.

One comrade quoted stand-up comedian Stewart Lee, who said that ‘great art should be mysterious and opaque.’ As the Hirst sculpture loomed across the room, we questioned whether there was anything opaque in his work. Perhaps this is why we reacted less positively to his work than some of the other artists and, as Sue pointed out, why he was one of the few Young British Artists who has not been granted any of the establishment honours that his contemporaries have received. It was certain that most people in the room engaged with this far less than any of the other works which we had seen.

It may be that, in the end, we were still unable to determine whether our politics should have any bearing on our engagement with art, but we certainly had an enjoyable and lively discussion and got to see and hear about a range of familiar and unfamiliar examples of contemporary art and consider how recent artists’ work responds to and reflects the society in which we live.

Next week's meeting, 22nd August, will be on 'Marx and Religion.'