Proletarian Art?

[Redistribute the Rep]

What distinguishes certain artwork as "proletarian"? like in architecture, paintings, music, for example.

[Bala Perdida]

The price maybe. Lol

[BIXX]

While I'm not sure what exactly you mean by this (I'm trying to say don't rake this as a criticism of you if it does not apply to you), when people make inquiries regarding proletarian art or music or books or whatever, it seems to be to further expose and support "proletarian culture", meaning they (the folks who ask about proletarian culture) want to immerse themselves in it. They shun what they describe as bourgeois, etc...

I say fuck that. Proletarian culture can be looked at in two ways, neither of them good.

First, proletarian culture can be looked at as the things the working class enjoys, which in that case cant (other than perhaps in some minor differences such as food movies etc...) be distinguished from bourgeois culture. Which is homophobic, sexist, racist, etc...

Second, it can be looked at as the culture of being a proletarian. What I mean by this is taking pride in being a proletarian, making it out to be noble or whatever. I find this to he odd because there is nothing to be proud of as a proletarian. Furthermore it just seems to be making it so folks don't really want to stop being proletarians- they don't want to smash capitalism, due to their fetishistic obsession with themselves as a proletarian.

Just some thoughts that I'm throwing out there.

[Rafiq]

What distinguishes certain artwork as "proletarian"? like in architecture, paintings, music, for example.

I've always been interested in the art movements in the Soviet state during the early 1920's.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

So, as per another thread on similar matters (http://www.revleft.com/vb/not-affection-but-t191089/index.html), I think there is a distinction to be drawn between the culture of the working "class in itself", which (while I don't want to imply a false homogeneity here) tends to reflect Karl's maxim that "the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas", and a revolutionary proletarian culture. I don't think this latter culture currently exists in a stable way where we can point to specific objects or activities and say, "Oh, that's revolutionary proletarian culture," but rather as a dynamic tension, with certain "events" taking on a character that is a) widely reproducible by the working class by virtue of using objects and ideas that are available by-and-large to the class (in the way that, for example, a strike or occupation is reproducible), and b) produces new forms of relationships which are antagonistic to capitalism.
In this sense, "culture" is impossible to tease out or disentangle from the "real movement" - which is crucial. We need to move away from the degraded capitalist understanding of culture which posits it as particular patterns of commodity consumption (this food, that hat, etc.).

[Hermes]

I say fuck that. Proletarian culture can be looked at in two ways, neither of them good.

First, proletarian culture can be looked at as the things the working class enjoys, which in that case cant (other than perhaps in some minor differences such as food movies etc...) be distinguished from bourgeois culture. Which is homophobic, sexist, racist, etc...

Second, it can be looked at as the culture of being a proletarian. What I mean by this is taking pride in being a proletarian, making it out to be noble or whatever. I find this to he odd because there is nothing to be proud of as a proletarian. Furthermore it just seems to be making it so folks don't really want to stop being proletarians- they don't want to smash capitalism, due to their fetishistic obsession with themselves as a proletarian.

Just some thoughts that I'm throwing out there.

I think there's also work out there, though, whose purpose is to describe the 'proletarian condition', yes?

Not in the first way you mentioned, not in the second way, that is, it doesn't glorify their condition or their attitudes. The two ways this usually goes, it seems to me, are it a) condemns the nature of being proletarian and glorifies being bourgeois, or b) it condemns the nature of being proletarian, and the class system is the reason for this.

[Rafiq]

I've always been interested in the art movements in the Soviet state during the early 1920's.

Oh, and speaking of which, I'm fascinated by early Soviet cinema. Soviet art during the early 1920's is exemplary proof that the October revolution was truly a proletarian revolution - it was truly a historical revolution in that it represented a potentially new social epoch for the entire world.

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I mean, what could this be called besides revolutionary cinema? The idea of abandoning scripts, actors - and so on, this has monstrously revolutionary implications for how we approach and have approached cinema. This was not simply a montage of real footage "with a twist" that you would find at every film festival. It represents, bare bones everyday life in an organized fashion without any other consciously intended implications or symbolism besides the capture of real-life as it was. While ideological, this is incredible. It sounds boring - but it was organized in such a way that we might be able to call the Kinoks of Soviet cinema the most honest ideologues in history, as artists. The ability to ideologically appropriate every-day life without requiring abstract narratives that embody ideological values was quite a mind-blowing step toward consciousness of ideology.

Films similar to this might even be called criticisms of ideology as such. This right here is the future of revolutionary cinema - and yes I mean to imply that this could exist today.

[Redistribute the Rep]

@Rafiq,

Do you think the realism of the Soviet cinema was analogous to the realist painting movements of the nineteenth century?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(art_movement)

Or do you think there is something that distinguishes it from that (other than the fact that it concerned cinema rather than painting)?

[Rafiq]

@Rafiq,

Do you think the realism of the Soviet cinema was analogous to the realist painting movements of the nineteenth century?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(art_movement)

Or do you think there is something that distinguishes it from that (other than the fact that it concerned cinema rather than painting)?

I think this kind of Soviet cinema represents something generally unseen in history before and after - the Kinoks were a distinctly 1920's phenomena. While a reduction to a wider or later trend of socialist realism is tempting, I think that it simply doesn't fit the paradigm. While not utilizing pretentious symbolism, the montages are organized in a way that clearly expresses ideas beyond the simple bare bones footage, with the inclusion of specified camera shots and according music. It's interesting how this kind of radically confrontational and upfront kind of style gradually evolved into the circus-esque vivid and elaborate staged spectacles you would later find in Soviet films (in the 1930's). All correlating with the degeneration of the October revolution, of course.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

The idea of abandoning scripts, actors - and so on, this has monstrously revolutionary implications for how we approach and have approached cinema.

Have you seen La Commune?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

How do we characterize "proletarian art"? Were the Mexican Muralists "proletarian artists"? The public essence of a mural certainly seems to fit with the proletariat, which demands an art form that can be consumed without spending money and time they lack.

What about Banksy? He seems to be pushing various "critiques" of the system, yet for some reason bourgeois assholes are obsessed with buying his art (they don't get the irony I suppose)?

How do we characterize BAD proletarian art? There is clearly bad bourgeois art. 90% of the stuff that comes out of Hollywood is terrible.

Rafiq - do you think that's the defining feature of "proletarian cinema"?

Are you meaning to say subtext and metaphor are "bourgeois", or at least an anathema to the proletariat? Or are you just saying that this represented a particular moment of proletarian art which exemplifies some of the virtues, but does not define what it means for the art to be "proletarian"?

[Rafiq]

Rafiq - do you think that's the defining feature of "proletarian cinema"?

Are you meaning to say subtext and metaphor are "bourgeois", or at least an anathema to the proletariat? Or are you just saying that this represented a particular moment of proletarian art which exemplifies some of the virtues, but does not define what it means for the art to be "proletarian"?

I think that because this kind of style lasted for such a short period, I don't think we can know. During the 1920's, I think it would be correct to assume that this cinema style was a proletarian art - while staged stories were bourgeois. Because of the changes in cinema and film-making since then, in the absence of a revolutionary cinema I do not think we could categorize subtext and metaphor as bourgeois - simply because there doesn't even exist a form of proletarian cinema today.

I definitely do think it could arouse some interesting thoughts on what a modern revival of the kinok style would look like, in retrospect to the manipulative, shallow "bread and circuses" kind of cinema on the big screen we get today, even if it is meant to be thought-provoking and engaging.

Take for example Interstellar, a movie which displayed phenomenal portrayals of the cosmos, black holes, Earth-like planets completely devoid of life, things which would otherwise be thought provoking - while at the same time trying to slip reactionary themes of "love is the fifth dimension" (not even as some kind of metaphor - literally the movie tries to express the idea that 'love' is a real dimension. The argument was that we love people even after they die), the idea that we ought to act in blind faith and so on. Not to get carried away - but one thing that struck me as intellectually offensive was the attempt to portray acting on behalf of something greater (humanity, the Earth, whatever) than that which exists within your own proximity (family, your relationships with others) is evil. Logically the idea that allowing your own emotions and immediate biases get in the way of fulfilling a greater good should be avoided, but in this movie it is encouraged. Mark Wahlburg didn't allow his emotions to cloud his judgement while trying to save humanity, and paid the price for it.

This is what personally irritates me about cinema today: A movie about something as complex and 'deep' as the cosmos and how we approach quantum mechanics ends up doing nothing but re-gurgitating countryside values and feel good bullshit which may have derived its influence from bible-belt ignorant conventional wisdom. It's absolutely infuriating. I think it is rather ignorant and stupid to dismiss all of these movies as "bourgeois" - but I definitely think these kinds of manipulative backdrops would be non-existent in a form of revolutionary art. It is true that some cinema today is filmed documentary style - but even these are dishonest in the sense that they attempt to convey ideas while taking advantage of that which we are ignorant of (regarding the shots, explanation - sometimes you'd see actors actually consciously talk about the ideas the film is trying to convey).