Beskrivning
Art thrives within neoliberalism. Conversations with this volume began with F.A. Hayek’s ”The Intellectuals and Socialism”, a key intellectual text in neoliberalism’s incredibly successful global march. We focused mostly on North and Latin American conditions, although volumens could be made based on geographic-specific differences of every corner of the globe. Resulting interpretations and approaches to the topic are footnotes in an epic, unceasing battle. Ultimately, this volume is intended as an incitement for more work: undoing the unfathomable destruction wrought by neoliberalism will take generations.
OEI #82-83 is openly propagandistic, an unpopular move in an art ecosystem that prefers its propaganda obfuscated in vague, normative terms such as ”quality” and ”innovation”. As inspration, we refer to WEB Du Bois who wrote, referring to the white cannon of art history: ”I don’t give a damn about art that is not for propaganda…” Although WEB Du Bois wrote this during the age of modernism, in a time when open and extreme racism was the common expression of ”civilisation” his basic statement is not divisible, and refers equally to the present: ”all art is propaganda”. All art is propaganda for what? Well, first of all, for whatever is funding and buying it, and thus for whatever value system dominates in an ecosystem. Follow the money trail, and the implications are no mystery.
