answer these questions.
Peter Phillips's contribution Is called Mosaikbild No 7, the style cloying "hyper-realism"Images of Elvis Presley, a woman "sex symbol", motor car and animal parts, and precision mechanical components are fractured and presented, as if on a split WILLIDE CAMICE divides the canvas surface into Mosuitbild No I exudes uncritical about Vals DE Pos-war OlIs cur It seems to belong unmis. takahly to the affluent and Wilson's 2041617 'white heat of the technological tend porticians when Elvis King. about never ag full emplos ment and rising living standard up by the High Tide of Keynesianism: the technological processes of production are there but neither a worker nor a manager Phillips Keynes thought. by confuring question of the re Tationship between the forces and of production There is not so much as a visual whisper of the crisis those values Tornie e R00 collapse in the 1970% But it comes as a shock when we realise that this picture was in fact made in 7974 thus, not only does il perpetrate false ideologic al illusioni tre ha the ne. ception of the truth in their day, but it does so at a time when they have been manifestly discredited by history Now OLIT production and standards of living are falling; the atteries of popular culture MaTC siffened;
even capitalism's protagonists agree thai ii is in crisis, Keynesianisns is un ruins: Elvis in in his grave. Yet Phillips paints as if he did not know, Of course, there are works i very lifferent styles Phillip's shallow Pop in this can identify 'lyrica!" and formal 3s anton aca "realism', and fair splattering of eccentrics who do not fit into any category. Even so, Phillip's painting is typical of post-wat Balish art in a sens which transcends style Most of the paintings share a common terection of the teDes SATO MAI ConTine relation to the monterial world, a isolation from CALICEE denial of history, and an intdifferenice to the liver and exper lences of the working clas Since this show has boen organ sed by the Royal Academy, i sample ings in relared styles. Albough Lhese include plenly of panireit of the middle classes and their cavironment, very, very few pictures relet to the working class ar tore ben tring ogg it a (Eunich's pnintings joit, it is so unexpected.)
But it would he wrong to object grounds of ics exclusive subject matter alone. Tbe very pictorial conventidos e which il make use are those which arase 1o This exhibition of 402 pictures by 197 artists is a shop window for the professional painting of the Welfare State. It is often said that the Russian State imposes stultifying constraints on artists, and suppresses most imaginative and radical attempts to represent the world in a new way by enforcing a uniform 'socialist realism'.
This is perfectly true. But what kind of painting has the post-war British state produced? Are "free' painters here imaginatively and critically representing their world? If not, why not? This major exhibition can help us to of the bourgeolsie at a particular and now superceded, moment of its development.
Altbough it was claimed that these could sem. objectively, The Truth'. the development of photography was just one factor which grad Dipco 10 historically specific they That those presently secking to revive them the for proletarian themes are so misguided. spicuously Francis Bacon — have tried to modify Lhese conventions has yet adequately explained why the visual equivalent of neuroti anest which is thos produced is of ercater significance than th effects prodi bed within the Hal In the catalogue, Giore writes: The iory of art in Briaget Riley:Crest1964 years is that of the coming of age ante ar American prini cance of American painting demy shows that in our time PaterPh/lips: MosaikolidNo.1.1974 gande traditions have atrophied They now contribuse nothing either to the was in waich we seo the world, or to women's and men's consciousness of their his For example, tains paintings by Law, Croce, ethers who either are, or are al but, blank monochromes signifySince several of them are grey or black, they lack even the sensubus hedonism of some American field painting without polemical intent, these monochromer reveal the liter wall at che end of the modernist cul-de sac repredetached itself from involvensent with the development to were which it has nothing to say, and who are chrome. The style of chese paintTO CON the same Despite its stylistic spoctrum British painting thus reveals itself as no temporary Russian realasm'; it certainiy has dis covered no more effective way of representing the and much of il has lied Trom thai world altogether.
Frederick One reason is that the private Бінікс bere has gether. Many such painters Thus producing exclusively wealthy overseas collectors, This, combined with poss-war can cultural hepemons, is reason why the Royal Academy Tunsbaland Produced Duncan Grant. 1972.
be as meaningful, material conditions of meaninglul, pursued its owo point Kong the antithesis of the artist must "free" to less limited than con*socialist constraint. "free" to do anything in modernist paintine at all now collansed atto ingrully and socially tow AUSILIA ESTESSEILE. commissioned some Academicians Ingeut of the State Henee the national museums, painter must struggle.
For House, Ameri antir 20 November.
andpensiones.
murders. is stuffed full of so many cuormous, vacuous abstracts. Those who produce them hope they will For as to collectors Texas, Saudi Arabia, or Hong thuyers lettin the Brita martel serious domestic are the institutions, like the Tate and the Arts Council. But they operate on the assumption that be produce anything and Paracuay. therefore not to be commissioned by the State or its agencies This reedomi so much waunt ed in contrast to what happens under a 'socialist realist" system, ers.
the artist becom -anything ca. except to work micanSter 2 There no substantial British society which has ams arrested thie social need for painters, expep those institutions, firms and in portraits existenos through the effect of the indirect patronage whose own insti tutions, while refusing to combuy ap the culturally marginal products produced by the rodanhave been produced hy artists.
monochromes. folded blankets, and piles of bricks in Another change in style alone i British painter's situation. To servise, Dow that the bourgecisie no longer needs her or him te pencer the Fidon beny be find a becoming necessary to the work class in their bistorical "British Painting /932-1977 25 a the Rayal Academy, Burlingro Piccodelly. London Wi 80p, halfpricefor studenrs, groups A Week of by CAROL MACHELI.
RODOLFO WALSH, an Arger Line journalist, is almost certainly dead. He was kidnapped months ago by the 'Christian regime a General Jorge Rafael Videla aller sending hian a letter af protest. The letler was an analy sis of one ycar of military rule -Dise of disappearances, tortur Decrees banning forma of popular expression "These events', it sand near the end, 'are not the greatest sufferif human rights for which you are responsihle. In the coonomic policies of the Government obie finds not baly the explanation cor us repressive crimes, bur Risc a greater atrocity which punishes milliens of human heings with careraly planoca misery... Talking about cultural resis and repression the mititary dictatorships of the soutberi cone" of Latin America is talkine about the gle. And these are the themes of the Latin Aiberica Festival to be beld in London in the last week of this month, organised by the solidarity committees for Argen tiria, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, and The importance of culture in the strucele is revealed by the extent to which the dictatorship have repressed all cultural wor STA 111 killed for areason. So were many oibers througbout Latin AmeriSLERTESSICN COVErS mans Fields, as the Argentine generals not lesitale to inform us.
probaoly wEy thes Divinskys, whe chüldren's book called Cinco Dedos (Five Fingers). Ac cording to the military, it wa Bimed al infants, with a view to indoctricating then in prepuratin for givin thiem ideulogica.
which would lead re subversive acts.
Facing che massive repression of popular culture, the working class and the left are finding new FA-OTHER CALEMA25 Tottenham Street, London W1. Tel: 6379308 SHADOWS OF OUR FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS, a beautiful Soviet Uraina for homasexualily. Sun. 21 Oct. at 5pm. Events on Catture anc ways of lighting back example came recently. when Uruguayan priat workers insertinterni lune of a prere representing bourgeois oposition to the regime. As resul the paper was closed fo ten days, and its editor ATTEnDATORE MI national capital - was deporter to Argentina, complaining -crime had heen committed agaicat hin Eduardo Galeano the exiled Uruguayan author of The Open Vein of Latin America, recently wrate of a new Latin Americar Sterature el resistscce whic does not set out to hury our own dead. but to perpetuate them which reloses lo clesr un th ashes and on the contrary tries to light the fre Caleano will be ane of th narticipants in the Latin Americ which hope will contribute to the co0 ciousness Chiat the Larin Ame can struggie is a continental one We hope that Socialin Chulleng readers will participate and con tribute. The week-long series o events on cultural repression an resistance, from 23-30 Octobe include:
Tel: 01-730 2910 cr 0-340 3627 1 10C01
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