As Radical as Reality Itself: Essays on Marxism and Art for the 21st Century

by Matthew Beaumont (Editor), Esther Leslie (Editor), Andrew Hemingway (Editor)

This collection of essays, by a number of established scholars and artists, proposes new directions for Marxist cultural theory and the criticism of modern visual culture. It addresses a diverse range of topics, including the state and revolution, Communist and post-Communist aesthetics, Situationist thought and the avant-garde, subjectivity and commodification, and the politics and problems of contemporary artistic practice. The contributions also consider several other pressing questions in the visual arts, from the practice of digital culture to appropriations of critical theory, from the relations of art and the spectacle to architecture in the age of global modernity. This book on Marxism and art is not offered in a spirit of on the contrary, it testifies to the continuing vitality and confidence of historical materialist thought in the field of cultural theory and practice in the 21st century.

Genres: Art

473 pages, Paperback

First published May 29, 2007

Reviews

[Jacob Wren]

From the introduction:



A conversation between Lenin and the young Romanian poet Valeriu Marcu (in a cafe in Zurich, some time around 1917) in which Lenin attempts to convince the poet to 'accept his critique of pacifist opposition to the First World War':


-------------------------------------------------------


Then Lenin said to me, 'Do you know the real meaning of this war?'

'What is it?' I asked.

'It is obvious,' he replied. 'One slaveholder, Germany, who own one hundred slaves, is fighting another slaveholder, England, who owns two hundred slaves, for a "fairer" distribution of the slaves.'

'How can you expect to foster hatred of this war,' I asked at this point, 'if you are not in principle against all wars? I thought that as a Bolshevik you were really a radical thinker and refused to make any compromise with the idea of war. But by recognizing the validity of some wars, you open the doors for every opportunity. Each group can find some justification of the particular war of which it approves. I see that we young people can only count on ourselves [...]'

Lenin listened attentively, his head bent towards me. He moved his chair closer to mine. He must have wondered whether to continue to talk to this boy or not. I, somewhat awkwardly, remained silent.

'Your determination to rely on yourselves,' Lenin finally replied, is very important. Every man must rely on himself. Yet he should also listen to what informed people have to say. I don't know how radical you are, or how radical I am. I am certainly not radical enough. One can never be radical enough; that is, one must always try to be as radical as reality itself".