Marxism and Art

Marx K 1845 - 'The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.'

  Marxism is :

 

  a political manifesto, leading to socialism, communism and the twentieth century conflicts between capital and labour

  a philosophical approach to the social sciences, which focuses on the role of society in determining human behaviour, based on concept of dialectical materialism 

Capitalism

- control of the means of prodcution in private hands

- a market where labour power is brough and sold

- production of commodities for sale

- use of money as a means of exchange

-competition / meritocracy

Marx concept of base-

forces of production          -         materials, tools, workers, skills, etc.

   

relations of production      -         employer/employee, class, master/slave, etc

Marx concept of superstructure

social institutions             -           legal, political, cultural

forms of consciousness  -            ideology 

‘In the social production of their life men enter into definite, necessary relations, that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary it is their social being that determines their consciousness.

At a certain stage in their development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production ...

             …From forms of development of the productive forces, these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution.

  With the change in economic foundation the whole immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic, in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.’

Marx, (1857) ‘Contribution to the critique of Political Economy’

Pyriamid of Capitalist system

The State '...but a comittee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie'(marx and engels (1848) 'communicst manifesto)

Instruments of the State Ideoligical and Physical Coercion

The bourgeoisie

The Proletariat


IDEOLOGY
1. system of ideas or belief
2.masking, distortoin, or selection of ideas, to reinforce power relations, through creation of 'false consciousness'
the ruling class has to - represent its interest as the common interest of the members of society, to give its ideas the form of univeraslity and represent them as the other rational universally valid ones. Karl Marx (1846) The German Ideology

Raphael, as well as any other artist, was conditioned by the technical advances of art which had been made before him, by the organisation and division of labour in his locality, and finally, by the division of labour in all the countries with which his locality was in communication. Whether an individual like Raphael develops his talents depends entirely on demand, which in turn depends entirely on the division of labour and the educational conditions of men which result from it…

The exclusive concentration of artistic talent in single individuals and its suppression in the broad mass of people which this entails is a consequence of the division of labour…

With a communist organisation of society, there ceases, in any event, the subsumption of the artist under local and national limitations, which ensues solely from the division of labour, and there ceases the subsumption of the individual under one determined art, whereby he is exclusively a painter, a sculptor etc. and already his designation sufficiently expresses the limitation of his commercial career and his dependence on the division of labour. In a communist society, there are no painters, but at most men, who, among other things, also paint’

Marx, 1845 the german ideology

The Hay Wain 1821, John Constable

AURA

The mona lisa, reproducting the famous. Reproductions can be kitch. Most people know what the mona lisa is, much less of them have ever seen the painting in life.

The feeling of the image when inside the glourous building of La Louvre, then behind a barrier, on a wall and behind a sheet of bulletproof glass, then finally in its frame.

•Marxist philosophy sees culture as emerging from, and reflecting, economic factors and related class antagonisms (Materialism)

•‘Art’ could be thought of as a form of ideology, that produces ‘false consciousness’ and maintains the status quo

•Political Art practices seek to challenge the ideological and institutional discourses surrounding and legitimising ‘Art’