Table Of ContentEDITOR
Ruth Kinna European Thought, University of Loughborough, The cover illustration is ‘Archive’, from ‘To Archive the Shape of
Loughborough LE11 3TU Memory’, 1999-2000, right panel of diptych, digitally reproduced
Lamda print. Copyright Freda Guttman,
BOOK REVIEWS EDITOR
Freda Guttman is an installation artist whose work has been
Dave Berry Department of Politics, International Relations and featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions across Canada and
European Studies
internationally. Guttman has a long history of political activism that
Loughborough University
parallels and intersects with her artistic preoccupations. Presently,
Loughborough
she is one of a host of Montreal anarchists involved in Palestinian
LE11 3TU
Solidarity work. This activism is particularly important in a city that
ASSOCIATE EDITORS is home to many Palestinians struggling to obtain status in Canada
L. Susan Brown Political and Social Theory, independent, Canada against the threat of deportation. ‘Archive’ is from a series of five
Richard Cleminson Spanish and Portuguese, University of Leeds installations (‘Notes From the 20th’) inspired by Walter Benjamin’s
Carl Levy Social Policy/Politics, Goldsmiths College belief that we must awaken from the myth of history as progress if we
Jon Purkis Human and Health Sciences, independent are to free ourselves from hitherto endless cycles of violence and
Sharif Gemie School of Humanities/Social Sciences, University of despair – a message that the world of the twenty-first century seems
Glamorgan
reluctant to heed.
Lewis Call Intellectual history, California Polytechnic State
University
Allan Antliff
ART EDITOR
Allan Antliff History of Art, University of Victoria
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© 2008 Lawrence & Wishart
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Email: [email protected]
Tel: 020 8533 2506
ISSN 0967 3393
Text setting: E-Type
Cover illustration: Archive© Freda Guttman
Anarchist Studies is indexed in Alternative Press Index, British Humanities
Index. C.I.R.A., Left Index, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences,
Sociological Abstracts and Sonances.
3
OPEN FORM AND THE ABSTRACT IMPERATIVE
Open form and the abstract imperative: Herbert Read comes as no surprise, then, that Read would appeal to this metaphor when
and contemporary anarchist art identifying parallels to anarchism in art. And in this regard, one of his most
succinct statements on abstraction, published on the eve of World War 2 in
the London Bulletin, is instructive. Read wrote that the abstracting artist was
ALLAN ANTLIFF concerned with ‘certain proportions and rhythms inherent in the structure of
[email protected] the universe which govern organic growth.’ ‘Attuned to these rhythms and
proportions,’ the artist created ‘microcosms which reflect the macrocosm’ by
rejecting ‘an exact presentation’ of ‘the external world’ in favour of the essen-
ABSTRACT
tial forms underlying nature’s ‘casual variations’.2
During the 1930s, in a series of articles defending abstraction in art, By way of example, he illustrated his discussion with an Untitled
Herbert Read argued an anarchist society is liberating because the order it painting by Piet Mondrian and a sculpture, Two Forms(1937), by Barbara
generates is founded upon the free creativity of its participants. The precon- Hepworth. These works expressed tendencies in abstraction towards, on
dition of social freedom under anarchism was communism without the one hand, an exploration of nature’s geometric structures and, on the
authoritarianism, an organicist social order without closure in which art other, its organic materiality. What united them both was their capacity to
could evolve unceasingly, in accord with the impetus of its creators. On this evoke, in the viewer, an idea of organicism that lay beyond the object at
basis, Read regarded the abstract art of his time as amenable to anarchism: hand. As Read put it, they expressed the living cosmos held ‘not in a grain
because not only did abstracting artists refuse the didactic artistic programs of sand,’ but ‘in a block of stone or a pattern of colours.’3
of communism and fascism. They created art that, like anarchism, mirrored
the open structure of nature itself. Arguably, Read’s legacy lies at this point
of intersection, where anarchist art encounters living reality. But whereas
Read searched for art that prefigured anarchism’s open structures on a
metaphorical level, as form, contemporary anarchists are developing art
that fosters anarchist politics in practice, by transforming art-making into
an egalitarian process that is itself unbounded.
Herbert Read discovered, in abstract art, a prefiguration of the open poli-
tics of anarchism. Anarchism is characterized by an insistence that you
cannot achieve social freedom through authoritarian means. Anarchists call
for egalitarian socio-political structures wherein hierarchical relations are
done away with and everyone is empowered to participate in the running of
society. Anarchist self-governance would involve organizations, communi-
ties, associations, networks, and projects on every conceivable scale, from
the municipal to the global, freely cooperating in ways that have yet to be
worked out. The point is, so long as the participants act through anarchist
modes of self-governance, the social structure is a sphere of freedom
responsive to the desires of each and every participant. Conflicts will be Barbara Hepworth, Two Forms, 1937
dealt with through consensual processes rather than the rule of force, and
no individual or group will exercise power over any one else.1 So far so good, but Read’s considerations were not confined to the art
Anarchists have often compared this open cooperative social structure to object. He also addressed abstract art’s social function by adjudicating
a biological organism. Organisms are living beings which evolve of their own what kind of art was desirable on the basis of its amenability to the anar-
free will through a process of perpetual becoming that is unbounded and non- chism of the natural scientist and geographer, Peter Kropotkin. On this
deterministic. Similarly, an anarchist society emulates this openness through basis he brought abstract art under the umbrella of anarchism, and
a harmonious social structure that is free, dynamic, and ever-evolving. It defended it against Communist Party assertions that socialist realism was
6 7
OPEN FORM AND THE ABSTRACT IMPERATIVE
Open form and the abstract imperative: Herbert Read comes as no surprise, then, that Read would appeal to this metaphor when
and contemporary anarchist art identifying parallels to anarchism in art. And in this regard, one of his most
succinct statements on abstraction, published on the eve of World War 2 in
the London Bulletin, is instructive. Read wrote that the abstracting artist was
ALLAN ANTLIFF concerned with ‘certain proportions and rhythms inherent in the structure of
[email protected] the universe which govern organic growth.’ ‘Attuned to these rhythms and
proportions,’ the artist created ‘microcosms which reflect the macrocosm’ by
rejecting ‘an exact presentation’ of ‘the external world’ in favour of the essen-
ABSTRACT
tial forms underlying nature’s ‘casual variations’.2
During the 1930s, in a series of articles defending abstraction in art, By way of example, he illustrated his discussion with an Untitled
Herbert Read argued an anarchist society is liberating because the order it painting by Piet Mondrian and a sculpture, Two Forms(1937), by Barbara
generates is founded upon the free creativity of its participants. The precon- Hepworth. These works expressed tendencies in abstraction towards, on
dition of social freedom under anarchism was communism without the one hand, an exploration of nature’s geometric structures and, on the
authoritarianism, an organicist social order without closure in which art other, its organic materiality. What united them both was their capacity to
could evolve unceasingly, in accord with the impetus of its creators. On this evoke, in the viewer, an idea of organicism that lay beyond the object at
basis, Read regarded the abstract art of his time as amenable to anarchism: hand. As Read put it, they expressed the living cosmos held ‘not in a grain
because not only did abstracting artists refuse the didactic artistic programs of sand,’ but ‘in a block of stone or a pattern of colours.’3
of communism and fascism. They created art that, like anarchism, mirrored
the open structure of nature itself. Arguably, Read’s legacy lies at this point
of intersection, where anarchist art encounters living reality. But whereas
Read searched for art that prefigured anarchism’s open structures on a
metaphorical level, as form, contemporary anarchists are developing art
that fosters anarchist politics in practice, by transforming art-making into
an egalitarian process that is itself unbounded.
Herbert Read discovered, in abstract art, a prefiguration of the open poli-
tics of anarchism. Anarchism is characterized by an insistence that you
cannot achieve social freedom through authoritarian means. Anarchists call
for egalitarian socio-political structures wherein hierarchical relations are
done away with and everyone is empowered to participate in the running of
society. Anarchist self-governance would involve organizations, communi-
ties, associations, networks, and projects on every conceivable scale, from
the municipal to the global, freely cooperating in ways that have yet to be
worked out. The point is, so long as the participants act through anarchist
modes of self-governance, the social structure is a sphere of freedom
responsive to the desires of each and every participant. Conflicts will be Barbara Hepworth, Two Forms, 1937
dealt with through consensual processes rather than the rule of force, and
no individual or group will exercise power over any one else.1 So far so good, but Read’s considerations were not confined to the art
Anarchists have often compared this open cooperative social structure to object. He also addressed abstract art’s social function by adjudicating
a biological organism. Organisms are living beings which evolve of their own what kind of art was desirable on the basis of its amenability to the anar-
free will through a process of perpetual becoming that is unbounded and non- chism of the natural scientist and geographer, Peter Kropotkin. On this
deterministic. Similarly, an anarchist society emulates this openness through basis he brought abstract art under the umbrella of anarchism, and
a harmonious social structure that is free, dynamic, and ever-evolving. It defended it against Communist Party assertions that socialist realism was
6 7
ANARCHIST STUDIES OPEN FORM AND THE ABSTRACT IMPERATIVE
the only revolutionary art form. Which is to say that the abstract impera- which were powerful and expressive, but ‘only when cities, territories,
tive in art was profoundly bound up with the open politics anarchism. nations or groups of nations’ adopted the free order of anarchism would art
In his edited collection of Kropotkin’s writings, published in 1942, we become ‘an integral part of the living whole.’9 Produced by individuals
have a succinct outline of Read’s anarchism. The anarchist goal was a from every walk of life and rooted in community diversity, art would
society where the needs of everyone would be met through a system of spread and flourish in painting, sculpture, architecture, and the everyday
decentralized self-governance and a socialized economy. Whereas environment. It would transform ‘everything that surrounds man, in the
Marxists argued the centralized state could serve as a means of realizing street, in the interior and exterior,’ into ‘pure artistic form.’10
socialism, Kropotkin argued the state was an authoritarian institution that It followed, therefore, that ‘the cause of the arts’ was ‘the cause of revo-
would undermine economic egalitarianism and repress the social freedoms lution.’11 Ideally, the social function of the artist was to express the inner
that were fundamental for progressive development.4The state, therefore, most impulses of the mind in such a way as to contribute to the material
had to be abolished at the same time as capitalism. Both generated social organization of life.12 However art could only flourish if there was social
conflict that went against humanity’s collective interest. and economic liberty for the artist to develop and evolve. And these condi-
Developing his argument, Kropotkin extrapolated, from nature, funda- tions could only be realized in a classless, anarchist society.13
mental laws that pertained to humanity’s evolution.5 He posited that the How, then, did abstract art figure in anarchism’s programme? Read
natural world tended toward a condition of dynamic equilibrium, in which addressed this question in an essay published in 1935, where he defended
each species spontaneously adapted to its environment and in so doing, the revolutionary potential of modernism. Here he mounted a critique of
contributed to the make-up of the ecological organism as a whole. Nature the condition of art under capitalism and its role under state dictatorship.
was dynamic because as species evolved and new ones came into being the Capitalism fostered a culture that favoured mass conformity over origi-
conditions of equilibrium changed. The well-being of nature, therefore, lay nality of expression while utilitarian products devoid of aesthetic value
in the spontaneous development of species and ever increasing diversity in flooded the social landscape.14 Indeed, Kropotkin’s vision of art trans-
the ecological makeup. forming ‘everything that surrounds man’ into ‘pure artistic form’ was
The prime force in nature was ‘mutual aid’ – ’the universal law of impossible under capitalism because capitalist economics disbarred artists
organic evolution.’6 Kropotkin observed that the vast majority of species from playing any significant social role.15
thrive because of spontaneous patterns of cooperation that also permeate Capitalism degraded the material world and repressed artistic activity
interspecies relationships. Humanity was nature’s most social animal and in the process, but it was not the only social system hostile to the arts.
amongst us the practice of mutual aid had attained the greatest develop- Soviet Communism and Fascism were equally damaging. Both subordi-
ment. This gave rise to cooperative modes of social organization and nated all aspects of society, including art, to the central control of the
ethical ideals such as altruism and the desire for justice founded on the state.16In these societies there was no recognition that imaginative expres-
principle of equal rights for all. It was in humanity’s species interest, there- sion through art was a fundamental human need. Instead art was treated
fore, to increase cooperation and to cultivate correspondingly harmonious instrumentally. Communist art celebrated the achievements of socialism
relationships with the environment.7 while in Nazi Germany the ideals of nationalism were glorified, ‘but the
Anarchism was the means of achieving this goal. An anarchist society, necessary method,’ wrote Read, was the same. The regimes fostered ‘a
wrote Kropotkin, would ‘not be crystallized into certain unchangeable rhetorical realism, devoid of invention, deficient in imagination,
forms, but will continually modify its aspect, because it will be a living, renouncing subtlety, and emphasizing the obvious.’17
evolving organism; no need for government will be felt, because free A brief examination of Nazi art and the art promoted by Communists
agreement and federation will take its place.’8 Such a society would be in the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom will enliven Read’s critique.
animated by the freedom to grow and develop spontaneously, with mutual Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück’s Workers, Farmers and Soldiers (c. 1940)
aid as the guarantor of progressive, as opposed to regressive, development. communicates its message in a realist style following the Nazi dictum that
This would mark it as a healthy social system, as opposed to capitalism, German art be understandable to the masses. The painting’s theme is racist
where these conditions did not prevail. collectivism; the German nation is subdivided into spheres of productivity,
And so we return to art. Read’s compendium of Kropotkin’s writings with war-making at its apex.18 Similarly, Soviet artist Arkadi Platsov’s
ends with a chapter on ‘Art and Society’ in which Kropotkin wrote, ‘Art Collective Farm Festival (1937) depicts ideological themes in a realist
is, in our ideal, synonymous with creation.’ The artist invented new forms style so as to ‘arouse a revolutionary relationship to reality.’19 Under a
8 9
ANARCHIST STUDIES OPEN FORM AND THE ABSTRACT IMPERATIVE
the only revolutionary art form. Which is to say that the abstract impera- which were powerful and expressive, but ‘only when cities, territories,
tive in art was profoundly bound up with the open politics anarchism. nations or groups of nations’ adopted the free order of anarchism would art
In his edited collection of Kropotkin’s writings, published in 1942, we become ‘an integral part of the living whole.’9 Produced by individuals
have a succinct outline of Read’s anarchism. The anarchist goal was a from every walk of life and rooted in community diversity, art would
society where the needs of everyone would be met through a system of spread and flourish in painting, sculpture, architecture, and the everyday
decentralized self-governance and a socialized economy. Whereas environment. It would transform ‘everything that surrounds man, in the
Marxists argued the centralized state could serve as a means of realizing street, in the interior and exterior,’ into ‘pure artistic form.’10
socialism, Kropotkin argued the state was an authoritarian institution that It followed, therefore, that ‘the cause of the arts’ was ‘the cause of revo-
would undermine economic egalitarianism and repress the social freedoms lution.’11 Ideally, the social function of the artist was to express the inner
that were fundamental for progressive development.4The state, therefore, most impulses of the mind in such a way as to contribute to the material
had to be abolished at the same time as capitalism. Both generated social organization of life.12 However art could only flourish if there was social
conflict that went against humanity’s collective interest. and economic liberty for the artist to develop and evolve. And these condi-
Developing his argument, Kropotkin extrapolated, from nature, funda- tions could only be realized in a classless, anarchist society.13
mental laws that pertained to humanity’s evolution.5 He posited that the How, then, did abstract art figure in anarchism’s programme? Read
natural world tended toward a condition of dynamic equilibrium, in which addressed this question in an essay published in 1935, where he defended
each species spontaneously adapted to its environment and in so doing, the revolutionary potential of modernism. Here he mounted a critique of
contributed to the make-up of the ecological organism as a whole. Nature the condition of art under capitalism and its role under state dictatorship.
was dynamic because as species evolved and new ones came into being the Capitalism fostered a culture that favoured mass conformity over origi-
conditions of equilibrium changed. The well-being of nature, therefore, lay nality of expression while utilitarian products devoid of aesthetic value
in the spontaneous development of species and ever increasing diversity in flooded the social landscape.14 Indeed, Kropotkin’s vision of art trans-
the ecological makeup. forming ‘everything that surrounds man’ into ‘pure artistic form’ was
The prime force in nature was ‘mutual aid’ – ’the universal law of impossible under capitalism because capitalist economics disbarred artists
organic evolution.’6 Kropotkin observed that the vast majority of species from playing any significant social role.15
thrive because of spontaneous patterns of cooperation that also permeate Capitalism degraded the material world and repressed artistic activity
interspecies relationships. Humanity was nature’s most social animal and in the process, but it was not the only social system hostile to the arts.
amongst us the practice of mutual aid had attained the greatest develop- Soviet Communism and Fascism were equally damaging. Both subordi-
ment. This gave rise to cooperative modes of social organization and nated all aspects of society, including art, to the central control of the
ethical ideals such as altruism and the desire for justice founded on the state.16In these societies there was no recognition that imaginative expres-
principle of equal rights for all. It was in humanity’s species interest, there- sion through art was a fundamental human need. Instead art was treated
fore, to increase cooperation and to cultivate correspondingly harmonious instrumentally. Communist art celebrated the achievements of socialism
relationships with the environment.7 while in Nazi Germany the ideals of nationalism were glorified, ‘but the
Anarchism was the means of achieving this goal. An anarchist society, necessary method,’ wrote Read, was the same. The regimes fostered ‘a
wrote Kropotkin, would ‘not be crystallized into certain unchangeable rhetorical realism, devoid of invention, deficient in imagination,
forms, but will continually modify its aspect, because it will be a living, renouncing subtlety, and emphasizing the obvious.’17
evolving organism; no need for government will be felt, because free A brief examination of Nazi art and the art promoted by Communists
agreement and federation will take its place.’8 Such a society would be in the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom will enliven Read’s critique.
animated by the freedom to grow and develop spontaneously, with mutual Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück’s Workers, Farmers and Soldiers (c. 1940)
aid as the guarantor of progressive, as opposed to regressive, development. communicates its message in a realist style following the Nazi dictum that
This would mark it as a healthy social system, as opposed to capitalism, German art be understandable to the masses. The painting’s theme is racist
where these conditions did not prevail. collectivism; the German nation is subdivided into spheres of productivity,
And so we return to art. Read’s compendium of Kropotkin’s writings with war-making at its apex.18 Similarly, Soviet artist Arkadi Platsov’s
ends with a chapter on ‘Art and Society’ in which Kropotkin wrote, ‘Art Collective Farm Festival (1937) depicts ideological themes in a realist
is, in our ideal, synonymous with creation.’ The artist invented new forms style so as to ‘arouse a revolutionary relationship to reality.’19 Under a
8 9
ANARCHIST STUDIES OPEN FORM AND THE ABSTRACT IMPERATIVE
Viscount Hasting’s Historic Growth of the British Labour Movement, a mural
completed in 1935 for London’s Karl Marx House, is a textbook example of
the style. Flanked by Marx and Lenin, ‘the worker of the future’ pulls down
‘the economic chaos of the present.’ Smaller groupings on the left and right
represent the origins of the British labour movement and its current compo-
sition.23 Epic murals like this were, according to Blunt, bell-ringers of the
coming ‘new culture’ after the socialist revolution.24
Let us return, then, to Read’s position on what made art revolutionary.
Like Blunt, Read opposed capitalism and Fascism, but he did so in the
name of an organicist politics of anarchism. And this was the basis for his
defense of abstract art and work such as Barbara Hepworth’s Two Forms
Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbruck, Workers, Farmers and Soldiers, c. 1940 of 1937. Whereas Blunt tossed ‘bourgeois’ abstraction in the garbage, 25
Read argued it was integral to the only type of post-capitalism worth
fighting for, namely anarchism.
There was a historical explanation for why so many artists were drawn
to abstraction. Hostile towards capitalism, fascism, and communism, they
were seeking ‘to escape into a world without ideologies’ through art that
focused on ‘biological structures’ independent of human history.26In other
words, abstract art entailed a politics of resistance. However, its revolu-
tionary import lay elsewhere, in its potential to infuse the man-made
environment with universal aesthetic qualities that mirrored the organi-
cism of the natural world.27
And here we arrive at the crux of the matter. An anarchist society
would be liberating because the order it generated would be founded
upon the free creativity of its participants. The precondition of social
freedom under anarchism was communism without authoritarianism, an
organicist social order without closure in which art could evolve unceas-
ingly, in accord with the impetus of its creators.28And on this basis, Read
regarded the abstract art of his time as amenable to anarchism: because
Arkadi Platsov, Collective Farm Festival, 1937 not only did these artists refuse the didactic programmes of communism
and fascism; they created art that, like anarchism, mirrored the open
sunny sky, symbolic of the bright future, the figure of Stalin gazes over structure of nature itself.
prosperous peasants who are enjoying the fruits of socialism in one Now the work of print artist Richard Mock (d. 2005) might seem as
country, including ownership of a combine harvester. The banner, flanked far from Read’s abstraction as you can get: however there is a relation-
by a five-pointed star and Soviet flag, reads ‘Living has gotten better, ship that bears telling. Mock began his artistic career in the late 1960s,
living has gotten merrier.’ This slogan, coined by Stalin in 1933, by and in the midst of the Vietnam war. His anarchism dates to that period,
large set the tone for how life in the ‘socialist fatherland’ was depicted when the hypocrisy of capitalism and its relationship to the state, was,
during the era of the five year plan.20 in his words, ‘self-evident.’ Along the way he read a number of works
Socialist realism in the Soviet Union also set the pace for the type of art by Read, notably, Anarchy and Order, which contains the essays that
promoted by the British Communist Party. ‘New realism’ was the term make up the 1942 collection Poetry and Anarchism. Later still, in the
coined by one of the party’s leading critics, Anthony Blunt, to describe this 1990s, he followed the anti-technological, anti-capitalist critiques
art.21‘New realist’ artists were sympathetic with ‘the progressive sections’ of developed in the Fifth Estate and Anarchy Magazine. Simultaneously,
the proletariat and expressed Communist-inspired themes of class struggle.22 Mock was making a name for himself as a print maker and graphic
10 11
ANARCHIST STUDIES OPEN FORM AND THE ABSTRACT IMPERATIVE
Viscount Hasting’s Historic Growth of the British Labour Movement, a mural
completed in 1935 for London’s Karl Marx House, is a textbook example of
the style. Flanked by Marx and Lenin, ‘the worker of the future’ pulls down
‘the economic chaos of the present.’ Smaller groupings on the left and right
represent the origins of the British labour movement and its current compo-
sition.23 Epic murals like this were, according to Blunt, bell-ringers of the
coming ‘new culture’ after the socialist revolution.24
Let us return, then, to Read’s position on what made art revolutionary.
Like Blunt, Read opposed capitalism and Fascism, but he did so in the
name of an organicist politics of anarchism. And this was the basis for his
defense of abstract art and work such as Barbara Hepworth’s Two Forms
Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbruck, Workers, Farmers and Soldiers, c. 1940 of 1937. Whereas Blunt tossed ‘bourgeois’ abstraction in the garbage, 25
Read argued it was integral to the only type of post-capitalism worth
fighting for, namely anarchism.
There was a historical explanation for why so many artists were drawn
to abstraction. Hostile towards capitalism, fascism, and communism, they
were seeking ‘to escape into a world without ideologies’ through art that
focused on ‘biological structures’ independent of human history.26In other
words, abstract art entailed a politics of resistance. However, its revolu-
tionary import lay elsewhere, in its potential to infuse the man-made
environment with universal aesthetic qualities that mirrored the organi-
cism of the natural world.27
And here we arrive at the crux of the matter. An anarchist society
would be liberating because the order it generated would be founded
upon the free creativity of its participants. The precondition of social
freedom under anarchism was communism without authoritarianism, an
organicist social order without closure in which art could evolve unceas-
ingly, in accord with the impetus of its creators.28And on this basis, Read
regarded the abstract art of his time as amenable to anarchism: because
Arkadi Platsov, Collective Farm Festival, 1937 not only did these artists refuse the didactic programmes of communism
and fascism; they created art that, like anarchism, mirrored the open
sunny sky, symbolic of the bright future, the figure of Stalin gazes over structure of nature itself.
prosperous peasants who are enjoying the fruits of socialism in one Now the work of print artist Richard Mock (d. 2005) might seem as
country, including ownership of a combine harvester. The banner, flanked far from Read’s abstraction as you can get: however there is a relation-
by a five-pointed star and Soviet flag, reads ‘Living has gotten better, ship that bears telling. Mock began his artistic career in the late 1960s,
living has gotten merrier.’ This slogan, coined by Stalin in 1933, by and in the midst of the Vietnam war. His anarchism dates to that period,
large set the tone for how life in the ‘socialist fatherland’ was depicted when the hypocrisy of capitalism and its relationship to the state, was,
during the era of the five year plan.20 in his words, ‘self-evident.’ Along the way he read a number of works
Socialist realism in the Soviet Union also set the pace for the type of art by Read, notably, Anarchy and Order, which contains the essays that
promoted by the British Communist Party. ‘New realism’ was the term make up the 1942 collection Poetry and Anarchism. Later still, in the
coined by one of the party’s leading critics, Anthony Blunt, to describe this 1990s, he followed the anti-technological, anti-capitalist critiques
art.21‘New realist’ artists were sympathetic with ‘the progressive sections’ of developed in the Fifth Estate and Anarchy Magazine. Simultaneously,
the proletariat and expressed Communist-inspired themes of class struggle.22 Mock was making a name for himself as a print maker and graphic
10 11
ANARCHIST STUDIES OPEN FORM AND THE ABSTRACT IMPERATIVE
In other words, Mock did not seek to dictate a political programme, he
sought to awaken people’s critical capacity to adopt an anarchist under-
standing of the world.
Which brings me to abstraction. Paralleling his illustrative work, before
his death Mock had been painting abstractly for over two decades. And
these paintings were integral to his politics. Asked what an anarchist social
order would be like, Mock stated: ‘We would create harmony between man
and nature. And we would discover, in an anarchist society, new dimen-
sions of being human. We would take down our armor and be revelatory,
revelatory in allowing the growth of collective attachments to the earth and
to other people.’31
Mock’s abstractions, such as Untitled, 2004, are an artistic expression
of this ideal. He sought to communicate the idea of harmony visually
through rhythmic flecks of bright colour that unfold organically in a
dynamic interplay that finds resolution in the whole. Mock characterized
these paintings as ‘cosmic’ and ‘transcendent’ because they create a
visual field that expands beyond the picture plane, an aesthetic evocation
of the open structure of an anarchistic order.32The paintings are revela-
tory, not didactic; experiential, not explanatory. That said, there are
Richard Mock, War Stinks 2003 distinctions to be made between Mock’s abstractions and the abstract art
Herbert Read championed during the World War 2 era. Take, for
example, Construction in Space (1937-39) by Read’s close friend and
artist, publishing syndicated editorial illustrations in the New York Times
and other venues.29
The prints convey a sense of his political concerns. The Planet’s
Death(2001) is a condemnation of the consumption of the planet’s very
ecological viability. Its slogan, ‘Eat the consumer,’ is a call to arms
against the capitalist assault on nature, which, as every one knows, has
reached its terminal stage. War Stinks (1994) takes aim at the rampant
corruption driving the military aggression of the US. Whereas the
government dresses up its wars as patriotic struggles defending freedom,
Mock regarded them as so much excrement squeezed out the ass of the
American eagle.
The politics were overt, but the intent was more subtle. ‘My prints,’
Mock once related,
deal with the maladies of capitalism. They create thought, they create
comradeship, by pointing to what we are all seeing and experiencing.
And they urge solutions. I give my illustrations freely to anarchist
publications because I have a responsibility to do so. I am part of the
information wave making the space clear so that people can feel their
own anarchistic tendencies.30
Naum Gabo, Construction in Space, 1937-39
12 13
ANARCHIST STUDIES OPEN FORM AND THE ABSTRACT IMPERATIVE
In other words, Mock did not seek to dictate a political programme, he
sought to awaken people’s critical capacity to adopt an anarchist under-
standing of the world.
Which brings me to abstraction. Paralleling his illustrative work, before
his death Mock had been painting abstractly for over two decades. And
these paintings were integral to his politics. Asked what an anarchist social
order would be like, Mock stated: ‘We would create harmony between man
and nature. And we would discover, in an anarchist society, new dimen-
sions of being human. We would take down our armor and be revelatory,
revelatory in allowing the growth of collective attachments to the earth and
to other people.’31
Mock’s abstractions, such as Untitled, 2004, are an artistic expression
of this ideal. He sought to communicate the idea of harmony visually
through rhythmic flecks of bright colour that unfold organically in a
dynamic interplay that finds resolution in the whole. Mock characterized
these paintings as ‘cosmic’ and ‘transcendent’ because they create a
visual field that expands beyond the picture plane, an aesthetic evocation
of the open structure of an anarchistic order.32The paintings are revela-
tory, not didactic; experiential, not explanatory. That said, there are
Richard Mock, War Stinks 2003 distinctions to be made between Mock’s abstractions and the abstract art
Herbert Read championed during the World War 2 era. Take, for
example, Construction in Space (1937-39) by Read’s close friend and
artist, publishing syndicated editorial illustrations in the New York Times
and other venues.29
The prints convey a sense of his political concerns. The Planet’s
Death(2001) is a condemnation of the consumption of the planet’s very
ecological viability. Its slogan, ‘Eat the consumer,’ is a call to arms
against the capitalist assault on nature, which, as every one knows, has
reached its terminal stage. War Stinks (1994) takes aim at the rampant
corruption driving the military aggression of the US. Whereas the
government dresses up its wars as patriotic struggles defending freedom,
Mock regarded them as so much excrement squeezed out the ass of the
American eagle.
The politics were overt, but the intent was more subtle. ‘My prints,’
Mock once related,
deal with the maladies of capitalism. They create thought, they create
comradeship, by pointing to what we are all seeing and experiencing.
And they urge solutions. I give my illustrations freely to anarchist
publications because I have a responsibility to do so. I am part of the
information wave making the space clear so that people can feel their
own anarchistic tendencies.30
Naum Gabo, Construction in Space, 1937-39
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