Marxism/Socialism and art

I bet when you clicked on this thread you were expecting me to rail against socialist realism, but no, not today. I'm writing a dissertation for my art history class, and I've chosen to do it on the evolution of art from a marxist perspective as well as how it changed within socialist society, starting from Dadaism in the 1920s/post WW1 and ending with the present day.

Atm I'm examining:

- Dadaism (George Grosz et al.)
- The Socialist avante-garde (Russia during and immediately following the revolution)
- Socialist Realism in the East (Everything in Russia including and following Stalin, and the cultural revolution in China. Maybe a little bit of wonderkim stuff too)
- Social Realism (Diego Rivera etc.)
- Contemporary art, particularly from China.

BASICALLY though, I was hoping somebody could link me to some marxist literature that examines art in relation to productive forces and economic climate, or just generally anything written by marx, lenin, stalin, mao or whoever concerning art in some shape or form, whether it's a critique or whatever I don't care.

Isn't this something Gramsci dealt with? Bourgeois cultural hegemony enforced through cultural activities (like art or entertainment). That art in a bourgeois society perpetuates the cultural ethos preferred by the bourgeoisie.

I wish I could tell you which works it was put in, but its been a long time since I've looked into it.

Mao's little red book has a chapter on art iirc.

Some links from MIA that I could found about Marxism and art, here you go:

Henri Arvon (Taken from Marxist Esthetics, ch.4, just suggestion: Perhaps you should read the whole version in the book, its quite comprehensive in my opinion

)
Revolutionary Art


Leon Trotsky
1. What is Proletarian Culture? and Is It Possible?
2.The Social Roots and the Social Function of Literature

G.V. Plekhanov (Compilation of his unaddressed letters, containing poetry critique and some passages about primitive-ethnic art )
Art and Social Life

British Marxist, Francis Donald Klingender
Marxism and Modern Art: An approach to social realism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EMqMgx03iM ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDRU8D7FvlU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KUl4yfA ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFVBhuu1 ... ded#at=183

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6ZRfJqrIKg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_EcpFLmUaU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzf3FRSbEUk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE9JXScBK3g Here some good videos.

I think this thread is much better suited for this forum. Moved.

Literature and Art Should Serve to Temper People with Class Consciousness for the Construction of Socialism by Enver Hoxha
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archi ... /10/26.htm

The Art of Marxism Archive
http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/index.htm

You might want to mention Andrei Zhdanov and Zhdanov Doctrine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Zhdanov
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhdanovism

I finished the essay quite a while ago (and passed, so thanks guys) but we've got some really good links in this thread so we might as well keep it for future reference.

My personal favorite:

http://ml-review.ca/aml/AllianceIssues/ ... INART.html

It's called "Stalin and the Arts" but it's really a more broad overview of M-L art and M-L analysis of art.

Good link. I completely and utterly disagree with all of it, but it offers a good insight into the M-L perspective of art. Perfect for quoting in dissertations n' stuff.