"Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it." -Bertolt Brecht

Art is traditionally viewed as cradled by inequalities of condition; the intellectual elite and economic giants control its production and distribution. These inequalities are the crux of what socialism seeks to abolish. The compliance that art has with political economy and inherited value is held captive by the bourgeois class. Typically, art forms are either a) private property of the genteel lifestyle or b) public property made accessible without choice by business aristocracy. The ownership, distribution and experience of art can be boiled down to the distribution of power. Certain socialist schools of thought reject historically formed genres, and without an institutional framing, genres allow an oscillation to occur between the skilled and de-skilled, authority and pretense, style and strategy.

Above: A scene from the Industrial Revolution.

Style, or an individual aesthetic, is available to all artists for exploitation. We cannot escape the past or ignore the pit from which we were hewn. Le Corbusier states in Towards a New Architecture “…if we challenge the past, we shall learn that styles no longer exist for us, that a style belonging to our own period has come about; and there has to be a Revolution.” When Le Corbusier refers to the period of our own style, he is referring to the immediacy of utility. Work that has a functional or constructional nature are universally moral. The time and skill that a worker invests in a factory is truly artful, its subtlety is unrecognized. A factory worker is toiling away to create a commodity for the Brahman; the workers’ struggle is not seen as noble, but as necessary.

Above: Architect and urbanist Le Corbusier whom dedicated his life to providing better living conditions for the working class residents of crowded cities.

Le Corbusier's plight in advancing the lives of workers was mediated by a efficient standard of living. His architectural plans for housing were streamlined, clean, modern. Often criticized as cold and industrial, many critics fail to recognize Le Corbusier's vision to leave the poor conditions at the factory door, the home life should be seamless. He rallied for opportunity to be based on need, not capital. In his 1935 essay, "La Villa Radieuse" Corbusier rallies for the working class: "Perhaps the most significant difference between the Contemporary City and the Radiant City is that the latter abandons the class-based stratification of the former; housing is now assigned according to family size, not economic position." His architecture was panned as cold monoliths, and were viewed as a brutal housing unit not too far from the banal conditions of a factory.

Unfortunately, Le Corbusier’s plea goes unheard; the value of art is often placed on how much capital in can produce, not the ethics involved or labor invested. Traditional artmaking tends to serve the ideological interests of the ruling class; these efforts are housed in institutions with extraordinary economic clout and provincial history. Cyclic and stagnant conditions immobilize any chance for any relational engagement between a democratic audience and a privileged audience, eventually being tossed aside as a frivolous cultural commodity.

In terms of socialism, the connection art has had with the proletariat has become difficult to understand in terms of lineage. Art and classicism are perpetuated by museums, institutions, and cultural movements. The value of art depends on the interest it gains in terms of capital and not moral intent. Needless to say, a time of revolution is a great time for the development of art. The socialists’ savant is multi-dimensional; on one hand we have the practical people who are concerned with trade union issues and viable, economic matters. On the other hand, there are pockets of cultural hubs that certainly feel what William Morris referred to as “inequality of condition”, undistributed classicism in all forms of culture. Their relation to societal politics is so analytical, artful and abstract that often times can be confused as selfishly expressive. Ignored by province that birthed it, and disregarded by factual politics, the art that is produced with a socialist lens continues to be subjected by classicism.

Labor and it’s role art has a strong relation to power relations and wealth distribution, one that cannot be simulated. Utilitarian items are essential to the life of the working class, more often than not these are the only possessions they have and can afford. William Morris, designer and socialist writer stated in his 1981 essay The Socialist Ideal: Art;

“To the socialist a house, a knife, a cup, a steam engine, or what not, anything, I repeat, that is made by man and has a form, must either be a work of art or destructive to art. The commercialist, on the other hand, divides “manufactured articles” into those which are prepensely works of art, and are offered for sale in the market as such, and to those which have no pretence and could have no pretence to artistic qualities. The one side asserts indifference, the other denies it.”

The working class are the vigilant producers of this art. Their craftsmanship is muffled by the nonreciprocal opportunity of the ruling class. Morris states, “This, then, is the position of art in this epoch. It is helpless and crippled amidst the sea of utilitarian brutality. It cannot perform the most necessary functions: it cannot build a decent house, or ornament a book, or lay out a garden…on the other hand it is cut off from the traditions of the past, on the other from the life of the present. It is the art of a clique and not of the people. The people are too poor to have any share of it.”

In 1980, San Francisco’s most popular Top-40 radio station KFRC had 40 minutes of their airtime purchased by The Residents,an avant-garde art collective. The group played their recently issued "Commercial Album" in its entirety with the purchased slot. Believing that a traditional pop song could be boiled to one minute of essentials, all forty tracks were under sixty seconds. Without a financial inducement, KFRC would be hard pressed to play "Commercial Album" in its entirety. Using the tools of a successful business, the Residents pirated a media form previously unavailable to them due to the nature of their work.

Defiantly democratic, The Residents’ body of work is one that goes faceless. The groups’ members have kept their identity secret since their first album was released in 1972. Preferring to have the attention focused on their collaborative intent as opposed to individual contribution, the band cloaks themselves in surreal costumes, often their trademark “eyeball-helmet” to continue to be identified as a unit. Akin to the solidarity of laborers during the Industrial Revolution, it’s fair to say this was the Residents’ version of a workers’ strike.

Above: Video for "Amber", a track off the Residents' 1980 "Commercial Album".

While "Commercial Album" deconstructed western values in popular culture (from the deflated skeleton of a song to how airtime could be easily bought, equating music simply as a business of propaganda), their most controversial endeavor was the release of their 1976 album, "Third Reich ‘n Roll". The historical reference is powerful. The obedience of culture during the Third Reich was something deeply embedded into the nationalist face of fascist propaganda. Individual struggle was silenced; heroic realism (a grossly misinterpreted form of art) controlled colloquial culture. In 1933 the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Culture Chamber) authorized only conservative aesthetics; if art, music, and literature produced didn't support the fascist Party system, they were politically crucified.


Above: The Residents' video for the track "Third Reich 'n Roll".

"Third Reich ‘n Roll" is the ultimate pastiche of 60’s popular culture, America’s “A Horse With No Name” and the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” are played simultaneously. Chubby Checker’s “Let’s Twist Again” is translated into German. A homage and denial to symbols of American culture during political unrest, the track titles alone do more than suggest a civil divide. Covers such as “Wipe Out”, "Heroes and Villains”, “Ballad of the Green Berets” and “I Want Candy” take on a new meaning by shifting a dismissable croon to a rocky cultural landscape. The album cover featured Dick Clark in a Nazi uniform and a dancing Adolf Hitler in womens’ clothing. The 1980’s version marketed for Germany was essentially black, it was covered with black "censor" bars in an effort to mask any Nazi reference. "Third Reich ‘n Roll’s Collectors' Box" was a limited edition of 25 copies, enclosed in a drawstring bag made by assorted pieces of nylon used in Austrian artist Christo’s "Running Fence".

The Residents' reference to Christo is not one that can solely be chalked up to taste. A rich symbol of unionism and cooperative collaboration, artists Christo and partner Jeanne-Claude created artwork that married aesthetics and the division of labor as a method of solidarity. 1976's Running Fence, 24.5 miles of white nylon fabric and aluminum poles extended throughout the hills of northern California's Sonoma and Marin counties. The installation went through the private property of 59 ranchers and their families. The ranchers were unwilling to cooperate with the Austrian artist from New York, initially dismissing him as insensitive and invasive to the private property and livestock they so proudly tended to. Christo and Jeanne-Claude spent over a year convincing each farmer as well as the rest of the Sonoma and Marin communities that Running Fence was in fact art, and would not affect their lives negatively. Christo employed hundreds of people in the northern California community, accepting no volunteers and paying everyone equally to work alongside him and Jeanne-Claude. All of the hesitant ranchers helped in the construction, one later admitting to using the white nylon as the fabric of his daughter's wedding dress. Every element of labor was vital to "Running Fence" as an artwork, each individual, lawyer or farmer all held credence over the installation.

Above: A clip from the 1977 documentary "Valley Curtain".

On September 10, 1976, Running Fence was finalized. A four year process to get every approval from the counties' local government and residents, the installation was up for a mere 14 days. The ephemeral nature of their sculptures is to secure a fleeting dominion, Running Fence cannot be owned. In a 1978 interview, Christo explained "We decide what to do, how we would like to do it, which way we should do it and when we should do it. Of course, that is an incredible demonstration of that aesthetic creativity, it is poetical creativity. This is very important because that is what these projects are about. When they happen, they translate that freedom. When people come to the sculptures, there were 2 million, 3 million people. It was not because of Walt Disney or some big museum, or some big corporation, or Coca Cola, or IBM, or General Motors, or the President of France, or the minister of culture, or the NEA, but because some artists would like to live with total irrationality, with no justification, no moralization, there are not any reasons, that is something nobody can invent, nobody can buy." The freedom and democracy that Christo's work symbolizes transforms art from private property to communal ownership.

Above: Completed view of Running Fence.

In July of 1995, Christo unveiled "Wrapped Reichstag". Over 100,00m² of fireproof polypropylene fabric and 15 km or rope were used to literally wrap the building. Excessively expensive, their work was funded by the selling of their layouts, drawings and blueprints. Christo accepts no sponsorship or donations, managing ti elude the capitalist retail market of the art world. The work sold contains no royalties, the artist receives no compensation. The money paid by dealers and collectors for the drawings and sketches are facilitated back into the working class. Wrapped Reichstag's scope of complexity spans from labor relations to the skill and efforts of collaborative groups involved in the building and construction. According to Christo, the dedication of the countless aiding in installation; all the individuals including the builders and local lawyers, all play equal power roles. Decorating the ugly reality of oppression, Christo, like a muckraker, sifted the symbol of the politically loaded Reichstag to the surface. When interviewed about his interest in the Reichstag, Christo discussed his longing for a building owned by the entirety of a nation:

"Why the Reichstag? Like all these projects, each has its own inside story, a preparation of long, long years...this is the first proposal to wrap a public building, not a city hall, not a corporate headquarters, not a private home. The building should belong to the nation, like a Parliament, the only building owned by a whole nation...the building was the ideal thing for me. I was born in an Eastern European country, a Communist country. I escaped from an Eastern European country to the West and I had an acute, interest, in East-West relations. East-West relations shaped the culture and life of the 20th century. That is why I am here in the West, because there was the Cold War."

Attempts have been made during drastic political unrest to expand art to the non-ruling class and exist on the outskirts of bourgeoise society. In 1919, the Museum of Artistic Culture in St. Petersburg (formerly Petrograd) was created to bring together modern art, Asian and European art, religious icons and folk art to reflect the diverse and universal nature of the Soviet Union. The director, Kazmir Malevich's goal for the museum to function for "the broad mass of the people". It flourished until 1926, coming to an abrupt halt under the demands of Hitler and Stalin. The democratic nature of the arts was at an intellectual standstill, an ominous sign of future developments. The totality of their regime was in the heart of the Reichstag.

Christo morphing the Reichstag into a public spectacle was not a singular occurence. On February 27, 1933, The Reichstag was severely damaged due to a suspicious fire rumored to have been a false-flag arson by the Nazis, using it as ammunition against the Communists (whom they believed were plotting against the German Government). The Reichstag fire was synchronized with the establishment of Nazi Germany. The building has experienced continuous changes and perturbations: originally built in 1894, burned in 1933, almost destroyed again in 1945. Restored again in the 1960's but the Reichstag prevailed as the symbol of democracy despite its seedy history, synonomous with the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. Marking the end of Germany's Weimar Republic, the Enabling Act of 1933 granted Hitler plenary powers over Germany. That year the Reichstag ceased to be the sole authority in exercising legislative power.

During the Battle of Berlin in 1945, the Reichstag became a symbolic target for the Red Army (also known as the RKKA). The "Red" Army refers to the traditional color of the labor movement, emblematic of the working class' bloodshed in its battle against capitalism. Regarded as the major force in winning WWII, the Red Army (later renamed the Soviet Army) strongly believed that all people are equal. April 30th, the day after Soviet victory inside the Reichstag, Hitler committed suicide.

Above: Iconic image of a Red Army soldier raising the Soviet Flag above the Reichstag after the Battle of Berlin.

Socialist Soviet forces had been essential in bettering the quality of life during the Revolution. Proactively tackling the totalitarian regime of the U.S.S.R, a new workers' state was implemented after the Russian Revolution in 1917, triggering an incredible wave of cultural energy. Artists, writers, and architects embraced the revolution as the workers' state opened up universities, studios and museums. Resources were made available on the basis of the nationalized planned economy which enabled artists and writers to promote and defend this new revolutionary world. To express it and to express themselves, the working class began to empower and develop themselves. Andre Breton and Leon Trotsky address the struggle of an unjust rule over an oppressed public in their 1938 "Manifesto: Towards a Free Revolutionary Art";

"We recognize, of course, that the revolutionary State has the right to defend itself against the counterattack of the bourgeoisie, even when this drapes itself in the flag of science or art. But there is an abyss between these enforced and temporary measures of revolutionary self-defense and the pretension to lay commands on intellectual creation. If, for the better development of the forces of material production, the revolution must build a socialist regime with centralized control, to develop intellectual creation an anarchist regime of individual liberty should from the first be established. No authority, no dictation, not the least trace of orders from above! Only on a base of friendly cooperation, without the constraint from the outside, will it be possible for scholars and artists to carry out their tasks, which will be more far-reaching than ever before in history."

The opposition to the strangulation of non-traditional culture was ablaze on the Swastika, the spirit of artistic rebellions have carried out in the wake of capitalism for the next 70 years. The classicist art promoted by Hitler and Stalin (while it portrayed a generic heroic), did not characterize the individual class struggle that the state was overwhelmed by. Instead, the work championed by the Reich symbolized privilege and power in capital that realistically, few could maintain. Even within contemporary institutions, the public collections portray a standard in which all other art will be held victim to. In certain pockets of music and art, obscure victories have gone unnoticed. While the Residents made themselves available to the public, other have not had the means to. The political underbelly of the avant-garde remains low on the scale despite their valiant efforts. In the case of Henry Cow, a socialist revolution slipped silently through the early and often experimental roster of Virgin Records in 1975.

Henry Cow, an equal team of three men and three women released their second album, 1975's "In Praise of Learning"; a musical amalgam that reflected the total experience of living under capitalism. Amid the complexities of Vietnam and the early 70's, other musicians took on thorny issues, but none were more dangerous than Henry Cow. If there ever was a proletariat art, this was it. Clocking in a little under 40 minutes, "In Praise of Learning" was deeply mercurial and penetrating, spawning few imitators. The opening track, "War", lays its card on the table:

Come follow me
Out of dark obscurity
Follow my torch
Pilgrims at the double march
Through meadows & seas
Abattoirs and libraries
The pilgrims increase
Boasting they are led by peace
They gut huts with gusto
Pillage villages with verve
War does what she has to
People get what they deserve.

Henry Cow's music functioned like anthems of an anti-system without the economic inducement that other musicians were rewarded. Adopting a truly self-sufficient and independent method of production, the band did all elements of the work themselves; mastering, cover design, cutting, pressing and manufacturing. Their anti-capitalist stance was brought on by necessity rather than choice. Their label (Virgin) accused them of making music that was deliberately inaccessible. While the apocalypse-fearing vocals of Dagmar Krause and the free-improv of Fred Frith (a guest contributor on several Residents' albums) can be testing to some audiences, Henry Cow used their compositons (or sometimes, lack of) as a platform to challenge the conventions of art practice as a business, a victim of systems that negated artistic cultures' intention.

While touring in Rome in 1975, they befriended another music group, Italy's Stormy Six who were also members of the PCI (Italian Communist Party). Political discourse ensued, Henry Cow's union with the PCI spurred 1978's collaborative effort, Rock in Opposition (R.I.O.). RIO was originally a single concert held at the New London Theatre, eventually adding a line-up of other political groups such as Univers Zero and Art Bears.

Art, like all elements of culture, does not come from a vacuum. Using their socialist agenda as a catalyst for creation, all of Henry Cow's albums are tinged with class divide. Track titles such as "Living In The Heart Of The Beast" and "Terrible As An Army With Banners" makes no effort to conceal their intent. Understanding working on their own terms with no contractual obligation meant freedom, Henry Cow pushed the limits of the genre.

Above: Henry Cow performing "Living In The Heart Of The Beast" in Vevey, Switzerland.

Two exceptionally socialist excerpts from the monumental "Living In The Heart Of The Beast":

Situation that rules your world - despite all you've said
I would strike against it but the rule displaces...
There I burn in my own lights fuelled with flags
torn out of books and histories
of marching together, united with heroes, we were the rage, the fire.
But I was given a different destiny - knotted in closer despair.
Calling to heroes, do you have to speak that way all the time ?
Tales told by idiots in paperbacks;
a play of forms to spite my fabulous need to fight and live.

We were born to serve you all our bloody lives
labouring tongues we give rise to soft lies :
disguised metaphors that keep us in a vast inverted silliness
twice edged with fear.
Twilight signs decompose us
High in offices we stared into the turning wheel of cities
dense and ravelled close yet separate : planned to kill all encounter.
Intricate we saw your state at work
its shapes abstracted from all human intent.
With our history's fire we shall harrow your signs.

In their career,Henry Cow covered other political musicians (particularly Phil Ochs). It's almost impossible for me to listen to Henry Cow without becoming involved with the same defiant manifesto of Dylan Thomas. The manner of delivery in Thomas' "In My Craft or Sullen Art" and "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" is like the language used in many Cow compositions. Major themes in Thomas and Henry Cow are unity of all life and the oppression of spirit.

Below is an excerpt from Thomas' 1946 poem "In My Craft or Sullen Art":

Not for the proud man apart

From the raging moon I write

On these spindrift pages

Nor for the towering dead

With their nightingales and psalms

But for the lovers, their arms

Round the griefs of the ages,

Who pay no praise or wages

Nor heed my craft or art.

There is a spiritual compulsion that is woven into "In My Craft or Sullen Art"; the will to create despite autocracy is omnipresent like a seraph. The Shakers, a religious sect recognized today for their belief in social equality and equal religious leadership for men and women. The quality of their craftsmanship in regards to utilitarian items (something greatly influential to the aforementioned William Morris) echoes the socialist spirit of the beauty in labor, and their contribution to music is obvious; their hymnbooks of the 19th century have been culturally influential to a wide-range of genres. The communalism practiced by the Shakers was an economic success, each member participated to the community equally. Led by Mother Ann, their motto became "Put your hands to work, and your heart to God."

Marx and Engels' The Communist Manifesto" illustrates the link between socialism and Christianity as seen put to use by the Shakers; "...nothing is easier than to give Christian ascetism a socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the state? Has it not preached in place of these, charity and poverty? Christian-Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart burnings of the aristocrat."

Religion as a form of moral being is told via artist's Dan Graham’s video, Rock My Religion. Graham introduces the history of Shaker communities, on a continuum that references revolutionary musicians that existed subversively, a parallel to the Shakers. "Rock My Religion" is a complex re-appropriation of text, film footage and performance that forms a theoretical essay on the ideological codes and historical contexts that can inform a cultural phenomenon. A refusal to classify genteel culture from the crassness of youth, Graham brilliantly spans history to sculpt a dense cultural relationship between art production and social reality. His consideration to architecture, urban space and power structures are implanted in Rock My Religion without regard to traditional qualitative judgments of cultural value. Populist in nature, this film bridges the gap between and individualized sentiment and a communal voice.

Above: Segment from Dan Graham's 1982 video, "Rock My Religion".

The societal pathos Graham addresses is synonymous to power structures and institutional rule. Freidrich Engels states in the Communist Manifesto “…when in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political power. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing the other.” When hierarchical distinctions between art and class are dissolved, the value of each becomes neutral. Thus, the compliance that art has with political economy and traditional value unshackles.

The understanding of socialism is complex, breeding confusion of its relationship in regards to nationalism, communism, anarchy and capitalism. So typically discussed as a historical relic and too often a dry historical analysis, socialism is the defender of the dark horse. The decision to discuss its influence in the purest form of power; the human spirit. Baudrillard's "Simulations" warns of "the simulacrum of ideology", exhausting a political credo via academia. Art is the vehicle to disarm the misinterpreted creature of socialism; it's not about stripping the human sentiment in lieu of struggle. Socialism is about awareness of ethics in regards to work and the morality of power structures. A parallel to the socialist utopia William Morris dreamt up in "News From Nowhere", artistic practices elevate the necessary immediacy of common ownership and a democratic means of production. The artist embodies the stamina of the worker and prowess of a Shaker, something that can't be taught and seldom learned. In the words of artist Paul Thek, "Afflict the comfortable, comfort the afflicted."