WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE
David Walsh speaking at San Diego State University
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality at San Diego State University held a successful meeting April 18 entitled, “Should art be judged on the basis of race and gender?” The guest lecturer was David Walsh, arts editor for the World Socialist Web Site. He spoke to an audience of some 70 students and workers and presented a Marxist analysis of recent controversies in arts and culture. The lecture was followed by a lively question-and-answer period.
The WSWS will post a version of the talk in the next few days.
The presentation centered on the role of identity politics and the social layers obsessed with race and gender in contemporary American life, and the cultural implications of those issues. The speaker referred to the new constituency for imperialist war, often in the name of “human rights” or “women’s rights.” He discussed several recent episodes—the attack on Free State of Jones and the protests against Dana Schutz’ painting of Emmett Till, Open Casket —that indicated the degree to which certain upper middle class layers are saturated with a pernicious racialist outlook. The opponents of Schutz’s work demanded that it be removed from the Whitney Museum in New York and destroyed.
Walsh argued that there was a material basis for the pursuit of racial and gender politics. He took note of various statistics revealing the sharp polarization within the African American population, and among women. “These newly affluent elements want more,” he said.
The WSWS arts editor then posed several questions, “Is it possible … for one gender or ethnicity or nationality to successfully create artistic works about another? Is such a thing even permissible? … And what are the implications if these efforts are not possible or permissible?”
World Socialist Web Site for more