In his second round-up, EWAN CAMERON picks excellent solo shows that deal with Scottishness, Englishness and race as highlights
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A class analysis
MIKE QUILLE is impressed by the rigorous Marxist approach to be found in a new book on the dialectics of art
DEVASTATINGLY EFFECTIVE: Francisco Goya’s The Disasters of War, 1863
Fiery words from the Bard in Blackpool and Edinburgh, and Evidence Based Punk Rock from The Protest Family
MATTHEW HAWKINS is mesmerised by a performance that dissolves the line between audience and performer
MATTHEW SHARPE recommends the essays of a Renaissance politician that instruct and unnerve after 400 years
GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes the reissue of a seminal work of revolutionary theory that have genuine relevance in the current context
RON JACOBS rides shotgun with a member of Black Bloc on the wave of anti-capitalist protests of the 1990s and early 2000s
The Dialectics of Art
by John Molyneux
(Haymarket Books, £17.99)
GROUNDED in a solidly Marxist perspective, John Molyneux’s book is a very fine contribution to writing on art.
Carefully argued chapters on what art is — how we evaluate it, how it changes and develops and the dialectical nature of modernism — are illustrated by case studies of artists including Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Tracey Emin, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and others.
The central strength of these theoretical and case-study strands is the recognition of the dialectical tensions that are generated and expressed in artworks which are produced in class-divided societies like our own.
More from this author
MIKE QUILLE applauds an excellent example of cultural democracy: making artworks which are a relevant, integral part of working-class lives
MIKE QUILL reports on a lively conference in Barnsley that took stock of working-class access to culture and proposed strategies to embed culture within the trade union movement
MIKE QUILLE relishes political theatre at its most entertaining, engaging and effective
ADAM THERON-LEE RENSCH talks to Mike Quille about what it is to be a working-class writer in the US and patronising perceptions of class that abound left, right and centre
