Does Marxist theory have a separate space
for aesthetics?
Marxist theorems and Marxist traditions of
literary historiography. Historically it’s clear that aesthetics is a response
to affirmations and creative imaginations of human creative values. Most of all
those created by the dominant ruling class, which always had the exclusivity of
its own. In the 20th century, Marxist aesthetics explicate signified
records of creating agitation and resistance against Capitalism and its
ideological apparatus. Many post-Marxist and neo-Marxist thinkers like Raymond
Williams, William Morris, Fredrich jemptson, and Lukas are also defining the aesthetics
realm to Marxism by relating production, alienation, and the division of labour.
In India, it is also can see as a division of labour and labourer. In India, it
had been seemed their cast condition divide not only the human it’s also divine
the humanity from itself. Therefore, contemporary aesthetics always work from
the superstructure to create hegemonic domination on the base. Comparatively in
India, the superstructure is always dominated by Brahmanical supremacy and they
create “false conciseness’’ around the mass culture.
Marxist
theorems in the early 19th century in Britain and Russia as well, it
was shown the success of the Bolshevik revolutionary model in Soviet Russia. It
had a clear agenda or promotion of the ‘class war’ policy which was implicated
against the bourgeoisie intelligentsia to promote the proletarian intellectual
objectives. It has also enhanced the revolutionary collectivization of
progressive writers and artist groups and similar individuals. The RAPP (The
Russian Association of Proletarian Writers) aggressively asserted the class
conception in literary spheres of Marxist traditions of literature and art as
well. It had clarity in the subject matter of realism or more specifically
socialist realism that became the official doctrine at the Soviet Writer’s
Congress of 1934. With the essential sociological conception of literary
traditions, RAPP took up the writings of Plekhanov which were acknowledged by
George Lukacs and Mikhail Lifshits, major and first liner theoreticians who
developed the aesthetics formed by Marx’s early writings and published them.
Looking at RAPP’s reception of Lukacs’ advanced model of Marxist aesthetics it
can be understood that the question related to labour politics was addressed
with nuance. The discussed tradition of cultural practices and the vision of the
USSR to writers were expressed through “engineers of the human soul,” as stated
by Stalin in his speech at the Soviet Writer’s Congress of 1934. During that
time, the agenda of the value of aesthetics were implicated on popular fronts
of the Communist Party of the USSR, and a re-inquiry of the Marxist aesthetics was
carried out with a radical approach to question the orthodox thought processes
of Marxism from early times. Contemporary to that era, it was argued: “where
absolute criteria of value and that ancient Greek art was progressive while
medieval art was inherently less, so that realism was the style of advanced
artists who identified with the cause of the workers and peasants everywhere.”
The artists of that time like Francisco Goya and Damier asserted their works of
art as a counter to bourgeoisie dominant ideology and acknowledged their
contribution to humanity’s progress toward the utopian endpoint of history.
Parallelly
Formalist art history, Queer art history, Feminist art history, and afterward
post-colonial art history and the social history of art co-existed, with
various overlaps and multi-layered combinations. These categories projected
rivalry at several junctions at the same time. Marxist aesthetics and Marxist
approach to art history took the role of small yet best side dish in this great
smorgasbord and they were usually served only in diluted or adulterated forms.
It had always been a matter of challenge to perceive modern and postmodern
approaches in art forms within the tenets of Marxist perspectives which became
more acute after socialist realism turned into the official aesthetics of
Communist movements in 1934. Aesthetic standards of age have always provided
for an index of the religious and ethical values of mass culture and they are
shaped by the conditions, under which artistic labour has been manipulated by
the dominant normative notions, where the modern and postmodern approaches seem
to be negligent while addressing the social organizations of ‘labour and
labourers.’
Image
i
As
examine various kinds of art forms like sculpture, painting, installations,
drawings, prints, posters, illustrations, anonymous art objects, and conceptual
art so on. That art also shows the line of hatred and ingraded inequality among
the base and superstructure both. explanate the material process in ‘Marxist
aesthetics’ I want to turn the light on the image I image ii to create a juxtaposition
in the context of aesthetics and art practices are acknowledged by communist
parties in India. Both images are also intentionally created for communist
propaganda, but those images are from separate periods and also images belong to
different locations and different material execution. In the reference to image
I and image ii, it had been clearly showing the practice of Marxist aesthetics
also reinterpreted by the means of labour production and trying to address the
caste base domination by understanding the division of labourer.
Image
ii
The
print medium is another powerful tool which related directly to practicing multiplicity
and mass distribution, this medium is a significant medium for German expressionists
and their influence in the post-war phase visuals and posters influence also Indigenous
artists as well. Artists like
Chittoprasad Bhattacharya, Zainul Abedin letter Somnath Hore, Haran Das,
Ramkingkar Baiz, and letter Somnath Hore and Kamrul Hassan, works are also
depicted to explicate the Marxist aesthetics and carving images of peoples from
marginalized locations and their deprive identity. Here I want to address the
next objective is to find examples of how the Marxist aesthetics submerged with
location and how art and aesthetics together extend their limitations to mass
audiences with transcend the medium and create a monumental presence for the
viewer and creating together visuals and challenging and assert the public
space and intervene more closely with daily life visual. It not only takes
previous content it’s also subverting texts to create and make an interactive
space and serve the idea of Marxist historical materialism and the division of labour
and labourer.
Image iii, iv
image
v, vi, vii, viii, also gave the
demonstration of subversive poor images. e "poor image" argument by
"Hito Steyerl", and relocate that idea and explore my work(images) as
an alternative representation. The poor image is a copy in motion. Its quality
is bad, its resolution is substandard. It is a ghost of an image, a preview, a
thumbnail, an image distributed for free, squeezed through slow digital
connections, compressed, reproduced, ripped, remixed, as well as copied and
pasted into other channels Of distribution. The poor image is a rag or a rip;
an AVI or a JPEG, in the class society of appearances, ranked and valued
according to its resolution. The poor image has been uploaded, downloaded,
shared, reformatted, and reedited. It transforms quality into accessibility,
exhibition value into cult value, films into clips, and contemplation into
distraction. The image is liberated from the vaults of cinemas and archives and
thrust into digital uncertainty, at the expense of its substance. The poor
image tends towards abstraction. But there is also the Circulation and
production of poor images based on cell phone cameras, home computers, and
unconventional forms of distribution. Its optical connections— collective
editing, file sharing, or grassroots distribution circuits—reveal erratic and
coincidental links between producers everywhere, which simultaneously
constitute dispersed audiences. The circulation of poor images feeds into both
capitalist media assembly lines and alternative audio-visual economies.
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Image
v, vi,
vii
Image viii
(Steyerl 2009) (Raymond
William 1977) (Morris,
william 2006) (Biswas 2016) (Graeme
Sullivan 2010) (edword luice-Smith
2019)
Bibliography
Biswas,
Monosanta. 2016. banglar motua andolon somaj sonoskriti rajniti.
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Edward
Lucie-Smith. 2019. ART TODAY. 3rd. Edited by Edward Lucie-Smith. Vol.
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2010. Art Practice As Research inquiry in visual arts. Edited by Diane
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