[Blake_Stimson,_Gregory_Sholette]_Collectivism_aft(z-lib
Introduction 9and that helped give birth to the Popular Front, was rapidly being replacedby a new dynamic collectivism, that of mass consumer culture. In this regard,both the promises and fears that collectivism provoked in the early part ofthe twentieth century were crystallized into distinctly cultural forms duringthe massive reorganization of political, geographic, and economic boundariesthat followed the Yalta Conference. Right on up until the collapse ofthe Soviet Union and its client states in the late 1980s it was the politics ofculture—from bigger cars, better gadgets, and appliances to freer intellectualsand experimental music—that remained at the forefront of social transformationduring the cold war. Collectivism after modernism, as MichaelDenning argues for the period of the cultural turn more broadly, was markedby a shared experience: “suddenly . . . everyone discovered that culture hadbeen mass produced like Ford’s cars: the masses had a culture and culturehad a mass. Culture was everywhere, no longer the property of the culturedor cultivated.” 11Between 1945 and 1989 culture took on a deWnite political heftin the undeclared war between capitalism and socialism. And reciprocally,politics took on a cultural cast of its own. From the struggle for civil rightsgraphically captured in Life magazine, to the surrealist inspired slogans ofMay 1968, to the emergence of the New Left itself, entwined as it was withan emerging, youthful counterculture, the range of transformations and contradictionsmaking up the presence of the cultural turn was reshaping theeveryday lives and struggles of the subaltern classes, and “As a result, thecultural turn raised the specter of a cultural politics, a cultural radicalism, acultural revolution”; it was a specter, Denning adds, that haunts the periodof the cold war. 12 Still, something new was already beginning to stir near theend of this period even as the bitter, structurally unemployed offspring of afast failing Keynesianism screamed “anarchy in the U.K.” and a musical pulsefrom Jamaica inspired the youth of the southern hemisphere.And what exactly is the power of a specter, a phantom? How doesit interact, if it can do so at all, with the broader social and economic landscapeincluding the struggle for social justice and the changing nature ofcapitalist accumulation? As we have contended, it is the seldom-studieddesire to speak in a collective voice, a desire that has long fueled the socialimagination of artists, that not only offers a unique breach into the postwarcultural turn, but continues to pry open the social narratives of today.Like modernist collectivism, collectivism after modernism was wellintentioned and thoroughly of its own historical moment. It marked a shiftwithin the practices of visual artists from a focus on art as a given institutionaland linguistic structure to an active intervention in the world of massculture. At the same time it recognized that the modernist’s collective vision
10 Blake Stimson and Gregory Sholettehad failed to materialize. Therefore if the earlier ambition was, as Mondrianonce put it, to struggle “against everything individual in man,” then the aspirationof collectivism after the Second World War rarely claimed to Wnd itsunity as the singularly correct avant-garde representative of social progressbut instead structured itself around decentered and Xuctuating identities.Rather than Wghting against the inevitably heterogeneous character of allgroup formations, collectivism after modernism embraced it.Yet if collective social form during the cold war became political,this was still a form of cultural politics or cultural radicalism. That is, itsmedium and its concerns were cultural; its fetish was the experience of collectivepolitical autonomy in and through culture, art, communication. Itassumed that the ideal of collectivism was to realize itself not in the socialmodel or plan but in the to-and-fro of cultural exchange. From the Situationiststo Group Material to the Yes Men, postwar cultural politics was mostclearly realized within informally networked communities of artists, technologicallysavvy art geeks, and independent political activists who embracedthe plasticity of postwar political identities while turning directly toward thespectacle of mass commodiWcation, tentatively at Wrst and then with increasingenthusiasm, in order to make use of its well-established network of signi-Wcation, ampliWcation, and distribution. But most of all it is precisely becauseFIGURE I.2. Zero Dimension in performance of Ritual at “Anti-Expo Black Festival,” IkebukuroArt Theater, Tokyo, 1969. Photograph by Kitade “Tonbo” Yukio. Courtesy of Kuroda Raiji.
- Page 2 and 3: ▲COLLECTIVISMAFTERMODERNISM
- Page 4 and 5: COLLECTIVISM▲AFTERMODERNISMThe Ar
- Page 6 and 7: TO LOUISE AND ARIANA
- Page 8 and 9: CONTENTS6. The Mexican Pentagon 165
- Page 10 and 11: AcknowledgmentsThis book would not
- Page 12 and 13: PrefaceThe collectivization of arti
- Page 14 and 15: FIGURE P.1. Promotional poster for
- Page 16 and 17: Prefacexvdirectly opposite individu
- Page 18 and 19: Prefacexviiadmit a desire to see al
- Page 20 and 21: Introduction: Periodizing Collectiv
- Page 22 and 23: Introduction 3to increase their pro
- Page 24 and 25: Introduction 5Modernist artists und
- Page 26 and 27: Introduction 7Those good intentions
- Page 30 and 31: Introduction 11collectivism brings
- Page 32 and 33: Introduction 13artists on Chicago
- Page 34 and 35: Introduction 15Phase of the Cultura
- Page 36 and 37: 1. Internationaleries: Collectivism
- Page 38 and 39: Internationaleries 19played a “us
- Page 40 and 41: Internationaleries 21Rooskens, Euge
- Page 42 and 43: FIGURE 1.2. Le “Realisme-Socialis
- Page 44 and 45: Internationaleries 25and an active
- Page 46 and 47: Internationaleries 27create a democ
- Page 48 and 49: Internationaleries 29of the fourth
- Page 50 and 51: Internationaleries 31Debord’s 196
- Page 52 and 53: Internationaleries 33in which the n
- Page 54 and 55: Internationaleries 35be demystiWed
- Page 56 and 57: Internationaleries 37printing a ser
- Page 58 and 59: Internationaleries 39NOTES1. Harold
- Page 60 and 61: Internationaleries 4136. The exhibi
- Page 62 and 63: Internationaleries 4377. Michel de
- Page 64 and 65: 2. After the “Descent to the Ever
- Page 66 and 67: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 68 and 69: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 70 and 71: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 72 and 73: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 74 and 75: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 76 and 77: After the “Descent to the Everyda
Introduction 9
and that helped give birth to the Popular Front, was rapidly being replaced
by a new dynamic collectivism, that of mass consumer culture. In this regard,
both the promises and fears that collectivism provoked in the early part of
the twentieth century were crystallized into distinctly cultural forms during
the massive reorganization of political, geographic, and economic boundaries
that followed the Yalta Conference. Right on up until the collapse of
the Soviet Union and its client states in the late 1980s it was the politics of
culture—from bigger cars, better gadgets, and appliances to freer intellectuals
and experimental music—that remained at the forefront of social transformation
during the cold war. Collectivism after modernism, as Michael
Denning argues for the period of the cultural turn more broadly, was marked
by a shared experience: “suddenly . . . everyone discovered that culture had
been mass produced like Ford’s cars: the masses had a culture and culture
had a mass. Culture was everywhere, no longer the property of the cultured
or cultivated.” 11
Between 1945 and 1989 culture took on a deWnite political heft
in the undeclared war between capitalism and socialism. And reciprocally,
politics took on a cultural cast of its own. From the struggle for civil rights
graphically captured in Life magazine, to the surrealist inspired slogans of
May 1968, to the emergence of the New Left itself, entwined as it was with
an emerging, youthful counterculture, the range of transformations and contradictions
making up the presence of the cultural turn was reshaping the
everyday lives and struggles of the subaltern classes, and “As a result, the
cultural turn raised the specter of a cultural politics, a cultural radicalism, a
cultural revolution”; it was a specter, Denning adds, that haunts the period
of the cold war. 12 Still, something new was already beginning to stir near the
end of this period even as the bitter, structurally unemployed offspring of a
fast failing Keynesianism screamed “anarchy in the U.K.” and a musical pulse
from Jamaica inspired the youth of the southern hemisphere.
And what exactly is the power of a specter, a phantom? How does
it interact, if it can do so at all, with the broader social and economic landscape
including the struggle for social justice and the changing nature of
capitalist accumulation? As we have contended, it is the seldom-studied
desire to speak in a collective voice, a desire that has long fueled the social
imagination of artists, that not only offers a unique breach into the postwar
cultural turn, but continues to pry open the social narratives of today.
Like modernist collectivism, collectivism after modernism was well
intentioned and thoroughly of its own historical moment. It marked a shift
within the practices of visual artists from a focus on art as a given institutional
and linguistic structure to an active intervention in the world of mass
culture. At the same time it recognized that the modernist’s collective vision