The Utopian Globalists: Artists of Worldwide Revolution, 1919 – 2009

This innovative and revealing history examines artists whose work embodies notions of revolution and human social transformation. The clearly structured historical narrative takes the reader on a cultural odyssey that begins with Vladimir Tatlin’s constructivist ‘Monument to the Third International’ (1919), a statement of utopian globalist intent, via Picasso’s 1940s commitment to  Soviet Communism and John and Yoko’s Montreal ‘Bed–in’, to what the author calls the ‘late globalism’ of the Unilever Series at London’s Tate Modern. The book maps the ways artists and their work engaged with, and offered commentary on, modern spectacle in both capitalist and socialist modernism, throughout the eras of the Russian revolution, the Cold War and the increasingly globalized world of the last 20 years. In doing so, Harris explores the idea that the utopian–globalist lineage in art remains torn between its yearning for freedom and a deepening identification with spectacle as a media commodity to be traded and consumed.

List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgements xi Introduction: The World in a Work of Art 1 Global Order, Social Order, Visual Order 2 ‘Globalization’ and ‘Globalism’ in Th eory and Practice 10 Capitalism and Communism as (Failed) Utopian Totalities 16 Ideal and Real Collectivities 23 1 Spectacle, Social Transformation and Utopian Globalist Art 34 Spectacular Cold War Communisms and Capitalisms 35 Alienation/Separation and State Power 44 System, Totality, Representation and the ‘Utopian Imaginary’ 51 The ‘Conquest of Space’, Spectacular Art and Globalist Vision 57 2 The Line of Liberation: Tatlin’s Tower and the Communist Construction of Global Revolution 76 Revolutionary Rupture, Structure and Sense 77 Space and Symbolism 85 Beyond Order 95 Collectivity and Necessity 103 3 Picasso for the Proletariat: ‘The Most Famous Communist in the World ’118 Commitment to the Cause, Right or Wrong 119 Picasso as Screen 129 Image, Persona, Mediations 139 Picasso ’ s Use and Exchange Value 147 4 Some Kind of Druid Dude: Joseph Beuys’s Liturgies of Freedom 165 Tatlin for the Television Generation 166 Th e Beuysian Spectacular Persona 171 Th e Spirit of the Earth 179 Process, Performance, Metabolic Transformation 185 Political Actions 191 5 ‘Bed–in’ as Gesamtkunstwerk: A Typical Morning in the Quest for World Peace 211 Sugar, Sugar 212 A Sequestered Zone of Peace 217 Just My Imagination 225 A Man from Liverpool and a Woman from Tokyo 229 6 Mother Nature on the Run: Austerity Globalist Depletions in the 1970s 246 Transmission, Replacement, Negation, Deletion 247 West/East–North/South 253 Banality as Tactic 260 Austerity Globalism′s Body–Politic 265 ‘Development’ Exposed 272 7 Nomadic Globalism: Scenographica in Christo and Jeanne–Claude’s Wrapped Reichstag 287 Th e Negation Negated 288 Art, Business, Diplomacy 292 The Materials of Spectacle 296 Form as Sedimented Content 299 Seductive Acts of Occlusion 306 Conclusion: From the Spiral to the Turbine: A Global Warning 316 Large Rooms Full of Wonderful Curiosities 317 The Void of Possibilities 320 Disappeared 323 Index 333

Jonathan Harris is Professor in Global Art and Design Studies at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, UK. Prof. Harris’s work has consistently explored questions of state power, culture, art, ideology and social order, particularly in Europe and America over the last century. His The New Art History: A Critical Introduction (2001) remains a classic text, and he has published 17 books as editor, author and co–author, including Globalization and Contemporary Art (Wiley–Blackwell, 2011).

“Though theoretically sophisticated, this volume is accessible and engaging.  Summing Up:  Recommended.  Upper–level undergraduates through professionals/practitioners.”  ( Choice , 1 September 2013)