The right to the city is a cultural right as much as it is a political and social one. Over the past fifty years, capitalism has dramatically changed the character and rhythm of the city. As rents have gone up and schools have been neglected and privatized, our alienation from urban environments has been underlined. This is illustrated and concentrated in the relationship of both governments working and poor people to art.
Read moreArt, Music + The Return of the Crowd
The following audio is from the Red Wedge panel, “Art, Music and the Return of the Crowd” at Historical Materialism 2017 in London, featuring Adam Turl on “Fascist, Neoliberal and Socialist Aesthetic Leveling,” Alexander Billet on “Shake the City: Space, Time, Music, Crisis” with Holly Lewis.
Read moreRecreating 1917
The following audio is from a Red Wedge panel discussion held at Historical Materialism London in 2017, featuring Neil Davidson on “Lukacs, Greenberg and the Spectre of Trotsky,” Crystal Stella Becceril on “Affirming the New: Art of the Mexican and Russian Revolutions,” and David Mabb on “The Three Crosses.”
Read moreAesthetics and Politics? Shit, Man…
It happens that nowadays making political music is often considered gauche, and everything needs to be dressed up in nine layers of irony in order to be considered legitimate. Ironic detachment is itself an attitude and aesthetic born of a feeling of political impotence against a backdrop of rapid technological change and the immense, constant, and overwhelming deluge of contradictory information. Like it or not, artists must grapple with this ironic detachment and find ways to appeal to or circumvent it.
Pandering to that ironic detachment is risky, because the work will just get lost in the wash, or will reinforce a detached affect that defuses political power.
Read moreDumpster Pizza Party #3: VHS Girl
Welcome to Dumpster Pizza Party: a podcast about art and DIY counter-culture with your host Craig E. Ross...
My guest today is VHS Girl, as known as the artist and tape-head Katie Winchester. In this podcast we discuss VHS Girl’s artistic journey from VHS collecting to creating paintings of her favorite VHS covers and becoming heavily involved in the DIY outsider art world. We also discuss the Solar Eclipse Comic-Con in Carbondale, IL that we both had the pleasure of participating in as well as movies, breakfast food, nerd culture, and the history of resistance against the KKK.
Read moreTell Ya
Above is the new single “Tell Ya” by rapper, lyricist, and poet Saint Jame from his new E.P. Impressions. “Tell Ya” is produced by Mighty Mizu. You can check out more of Saint Jame's music on SoundCloud. Saint Jame's new E.P. Impressions is also available for streaming, downloading, and purchasing on Bandcamp. Be sure to check out Saint Jame's artist statement below. – The Editors
Read moreOld Mole
The harsh noise EP Old Mole by St. Guillotine & The Red Mass is a musical séance of the ghost of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The intention of this work is to reinvigorate the spirit of Lenin within the consciousness of the working class through meditative contact with the dead revolutionary. This EP a part of St. Guillotine's ongoing propaganda campaign to spread The Communal Order of the Ouroboros. The Communal Order of the Ouroboros is an open coven for all communist witches, warlocks, and other magical and/or mystical Marxists. The only initiation to become a member of this anonymous coven, is to become possessed by the Spectre of Communism (the communal ghost of every living and dead communist).
Read moreNJENA
The harsh noise, glitchcraft album NJENA by St. Guillotine & The Red Mass is an experimental, musical sigil (an inscribed or painted symbol considered to have magical power) which acts as a meditative soundtrack to the adepts initiation into The Communal Order of the Ouroboros. The Communal Order of the Ouroboros is an open coven for all communist witches, warlocks, and other magical and/or mystical Marxists. The only initiation to become a member of this anonymous coven, is to become possessed by the Spectre of Communism (the communal ghost of every living and dead communist). Through communion with the Spectre, the class consciousness of the adept is raised, and the initiate gains the revolutionary magical skills necessary to combat Moloch and the dictatorship of capital.
Read moreRed Wedge Panel 2: Interrogating Uneven and Combined
The Red Wedge "Interrogating Uneven and Combined Development in Aesthetics" panel at Historical Materialism Toronto 2016 (York University). Right to left: Alex Billet, Adam Turl, Trish Kahle and Jordy Cummings.
Recent years have seen an application of the Marxist concept of uneven and combined development (UCD) to the study of cultural and aesthetic production. With a few exceptions, however, this application has been limited to the medium of literature.
This panel interrogates the framework of UCD and aesthetics through questioning the nature of the relationship and expanding said framework into music and visual art. It also discusses the relationship between aesthetics and the geographic changes of neoliberalism.
Read moreEyelids
There are those days that seem longer than most. Days when I want to hole up in my crummy corner of the planet apartment complex and never leave. Usually I'm a very social being but we live in a wild world ya'll and sometimes it all feels like too much. Bad friends, bad times, bad relationships, bad vibes. I close my doors, close my eyes, and find reassurance. "Eyelids", produced by Dalessio and I, is an attempt to explore that thought. Hopefully I can uncover the same kind of lyrical honesty throughout my upcoming E.P. Impressions as I did in this single.
Read moreThee Mistakes E.P.
Thee Mistakes was an accident. It did not slip from our tongues fraught with meaning or even mystery; not at first. Much like the systems under which we all live, it was a small idea at first, a placeholder for something better that was yet to come. And like those systems, it stuck. It caught on; we ran with it.
Upon some reflection, though, it came to represent a certain truth. It had felt right because our existence, our collaboration, and the fruits of our discourse highlighted that there were errors, in the system, in our art, our lives, and that we, somehow, had begun to address them.
Read moreRed Wedge Panel 1: Art Against Global Apartheid
The Red Wedge panel "Art Against Global Apartheid" at Historical Materialism Toronto 2016 (York University). Crystal Stella Becerril speaking, Adam Turl in the background.
Red Wedge presented two panels at last month’s Historical Materialism conference in Toronto. The first panel was designed to expound on the theme of our second issue, “Art Against Global Apartheid,” which was officially launched at the conference. The following presentations were part of the panel:
- “Time/Space/Resistance and the Aesthetics of Neoliberalism” by Alexander Billet
- “Bitch Better Have My Marxism: Notes On the Intersection of Politics and Pop Culture” by Crystal Stella Becerril
- “November Network of Anti-capitalist Artists” by Adam Turl
For Art as Epic Theater
Red Mars by Adam Turl, acrylic, sharpie, coffee, meteorite dust, glitter on canvas with found objects, 2016, Lewis Center, Sam Fox School of Art, Saint Louis, Missouri
In October, 2015 Red Wedge's Adam Turl gave a lecture, "For Art as Epic Theater" at the Brett Wesley Gallery in Las Vegas, Nevada and Project 1612 in Peoria, Illinois. These artist talks coincided with the "13 Baristas" exhibit in Las Vegas and the "Kick the Cat" show in Peoria. The audio above is from the Las Vegas presentation and includes the discussion that followed. The lecture ends around the 45 minute mark. Turl makes the case for seeing the art space as a theatrical space. In addition he advocates for the alternating of distancing and non-distancing artistic tropes. Finally, Turl argues for Epic narratives in art. This includes the ancient mythological nature of the Epic as well as the inclusion of a multiplicity of proletarian narratives (neither idealized nor detached from social and economic relationships). Turl would like to thank both galleries, and the generosity of the Brett Wesley Gallery in particular, for their help in facilitating both the exhibitions and artist presentations.
Read more"Who Stole the Soul?" Understanding Cultural Exchange Under Neoliberalism
Ian Matchett, The Bench Sitters (2012)
Contemporary capitalism has produced stark and contradictory forms of development that by extension produce equally contradictory ways of understanding culture and the phenomenon of cultural exchange. The exchange of commodities, ideas and forms of artistic expression has always been a feature of capitalist development. Neoliberalism, however, has accelerated and accentuated these phenomena; therefore the left must reconsider the way we engage with questions of culture and cultural exchange.
The term “cultural appropriation” is one such attempt at engaging with cultural exchange, and one which has moved into common parlance among the radical left over the past decade. However, much of the theory that has emerged to explain cultural exchange, although rooted in an anti-racist instinct, is a product of post-colonial theory.
Read moreJustice for Larry Jackson
We made this song in memory of Larry Jackson, We made this song for LaKiza.
We made this song for the community.
We made this song to heal.
We made this song to pressure the judge to NOT DISMISS THE CASE.
Neoliberalism and the Radical Imagination
In late May 2015 Red Wedge editors Alexander Billet and Adam Turl spoke at the Left Forum in a workshop on "Neoliberalism and the Importance of the Radical Imagination." The above audio includes the presentations by Billet and Turl as well as the discussion that followed — touching on how neoliberalism has narrowed the radical imagination, the relationship of labor to culture, as well as possible practical and aesthetic strategies for contemporary art and culture.
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