Can't resist quoting Walter Benjamin: "Art's last line of resistance coincides with the commodity's most advanced line of attack."
On 2/20/08, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > My review of "No Country for Old Men" has generated a more general > discussion about art and politics on my blog and on Stan Goff's Feral > Scholar. Although the debate has been pretty polarized over the role > of Cormac McCarthy in realizing some ideal about Great Literature, > just about every participant lays claim to radicalism or Marxism. > > One of the more ubiquitous posters is one John Steppling, who seeks > to rescue art from commissars like myself who are represented as > latter day partisans of the proletarian novel and socialist realism: > > You cannot attack Mccarthy for not writing a book making the didatic > points you want him to make. Thats not what literature does at any > time. I find a lot of people on all political sides become a bit > frightened by characters when they are constructed as McCarthy > constructs them…by which I mean without conventional sentimentality > and motivation. > > I should add that Steppling's comments are almost marked by such > spelling and grammatical errors which led blogger Martin Wisse to > observe: "How can anyone take a John Steppling seriously on > literature when the fellow doesn't even have a basic command of English?" > > One of the benefits of the debate for me has been its triggering in > my mind of some deeper considerations of the social role of art (I > use the word art in reference to painting, music, theater, poetry, > novels and all the rest), especially in light of a re-reading of the > early chapters of volume one of Karl Marx's "Capital". When you think > of the creation of art in the context of the commodity, use value and > exchange value, certain thoughts come to mind that might help put the > debate on a more "materialist" foundation. > Keep in mind that art only began to become a commodity in the > mid-19th century as the artist was freed from feudal ties. For the > musician and painter, the need for support from the prince or the > church was obvious. A piano was expensive, not to speak of the > orchestra needed to perform a composition. For the painter, fixed > capital was fairly minimal: a canvas and some paint. But since each > work was non-reproducible, there had to be a wealthy backer to > support his efforts. This meant that the typical painting was a > laughing cavalier or a crucifixion. The artist only became to be > emancipated from feudal dependence when a new bourgeoisie began to > emerge. For the musician the struggle was longer and harder as > Mozart's life story demonstrates. > > full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/02/21/art-as-commodity/ > -- Sandwichman
