Antliff Allan. Anarchy and Art: From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall (ENG)
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Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p cxxx.
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/dominicanuc/Doc?id=10308829&ppg=130
130 ANARCHY AND ART
NOTES TO CHAPTER 6
Ralph B. Levring, Thr CoM : /945-1987 (Arlington Heights, IL: I-larlan
Davidson,
1988): 14.
2
I am quoti ng the text of a orld ar I [ poster, "This is Amcrica ... Kccp it
Frce!" (1942) in William L. Bird, Jr. and Harry R. Rubenstcin, Desigillgfor
ViaolT IVodd I Vm - / / Posten Oil thr mricull Nome Front (Princcton: Princeton
Architcctural Press,
1998): 85.
3 James Tracy,
Direct Actioll: Radil Pacifism from tbe Vllioll Eigbt to tbe Cbicago
S';(I1
(Chicago: Uniersity of Chicago Press, 1996): 51; Lawrence S. ittner,
Rebe Against IVaI': Tbt Americall Pta(e IHovee/lt, /941-1960 (New York:
Columbia Univrsity Prss, 19(9), 106.
4
Dwight Macdonal{l, "The Bomb," (September 1945) in Jn oirs of a Rroo/lftiollist
(New York: Meridian Books, 1958): 177.
5 Levring, 56.
6
Paul Avrich, Allahist Vo is (PrincclOn: Princeton University Press, 1995): 417.
7
Holley Cantinc,Jr., "Editorials,"
Retort 2 (Winter 1945): 2-9
8 Dachine Rainer, "Holley Camine: February 14, 1916-January 2, 1977,"
Dmllkell
OMt: Art, Rebtioll, Alla/'cby,
Max Bleckman, ed. (New York and Seattle:
Autonollledia and Lft Bank Books, 1994): 17S.
9
Cantinc's rst companion, Dorothy Paul, scrve{1 as co�editor ofTbe Retm-t from
its fou nding in 1942 through to 1945. After Cantine began his relationship with
Rainer, Paul <Ieparted ami Rainr took on co�editorship. Se ibi{l.,
181.
10
Ibid., 184.
11
Cantinc,Jr., "Editorials," 7.
Ibid., 3.
12
1l Ibid., 4.
14
On Rexroth's life, se Ken Kabb, The Relevallce of Rth (Brkeley; Bureau
of Public Sccrets,
1990): 49-55, and Kenneth Rexroth, "Interviews," The
Fllcisco Beat Pons, Daid Meltzer, ed. (New York: Ballantine, 1971): 13. On the
founding of the Lihrtarian Circie, see Ekbrt Faas, I'Ollllg Robert DCO: Porh-ait
of tbr Poet
S Homosexllal ill Sociely (Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press, 1983): 192.
15
Rexroth {
l
uoted in ibid.
16 Ibid., 193
17 Dican shjian,
A Boat Load ofadm: SIII7'a/il1 ali tbe Amcriml1 A�
Garde,
1920�1950 (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1995): 157-160.
18 Ibid., 199-200. See, for example. the back coer of
View 5 (May 1945).
19
See Vi 11', ols. 6-7 (Febnlary JQ46-lbr<:h 1947).
20 Ford quoted in Ta shjian, 100-201.
21
Faas,72.
22 James Peler Cooney, "Editorial," The /Jhot1lix 2 (Spring 1939): 120.
13 Ibid., 123.
24 "Editorial,"
Ark (1947) quoted in Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Nancy J. Peters,
Lite,.",y SOIl Frm"isco: A Pictrilll HiifOlY om I Otgilmillgi to tbe Presel/t Day (San
Francisco: City Lights Books, 1980): 155-156.
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p cxxxi.
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Gay Aarchy 131
25
Faas, 123.
26 Ihid., 61-145.
27 Roben Duncan, "The Homosexual in Sociery," Politin 1 (August 1944): 20 9-111.
28
Ibid., III.
29
Rouen Duncan, "Reviewing Vie
w
, An Attack," The "kk 1 (1947): 63.
30 Ihid., 63-64.
31
Ibid ., 64. French surrealist George Bataille's journal, DOCllI (1929-1932), pub
lished many photo features of slaughterhouse scenes, killings, human deformities,
etc., along�ide celebratory articles on topics such as sadism, torture, rape, can
nihalism, murder, and human sacrice, usually visited upon helpless women or
children. Such preoccupations arc imlicative of the movelllenL Sec Briony Fer,
David Batchelor, and Paul \Vooo,
Rwlis71I, Rti1, SIII'1lirm: A Bt'tl/
tbe
a n- (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993): 200-209 ami Rudolf Kuenzli,
�Surn:alislll and j\ isogyny,"
SIIoli57 ad IVowe, j\1 ary Ann Caws, Rlolf
Kuenzli, and Gwen Raaberg, cds. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991): 17-26.
32
Duncan, "Reviewing Vi," 64.
B Ibid.
34 Ihid., 65.
35 Ihid., 66.
36 See Ta shjian, 188-198.
37
Duncan, "Reviewing Vi," 67.
38 Ihid.
39
Ibid.,
65.
40 Ibid., 67.
41 Ibid.
41 Ihid., 63.
43
Patrick Frank, "San Francisco, 1952: Paimers, Poeu, Anarchism," Drl/ke H!:
Art, ReMlliQ Il,
AlI01'(Y, 146.
44
ichael Auping, "An Interview with Jess," Jess: A G"od Coge, 195/-1993
(Buffalo: Alben-Knox An Galler, 1993): 19.
45
Collins quoted in lVl ichad Auping, "Jess: A Grand Collage,"
Jm; A Gralld Col/agr,
1951-1993, 46.
46
See "Chronology," Je: A Grand Coagr, /9-1993, 234. Collins is cited in Frank,
146.
47 Auping, "An Interview with Jess," 19.
48
Ibid., 20.
49 Clyfford Still, "Statement (1952)" and "Statement (1963)," {Iuuted in David
Craven,
Abstd pressio1lism IH CuituIl Cl'itiljllr: is5rllt urillg thr lIrCl'thy
Pri (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni\'ersit)' Press, 1999): 166.
50
D�vid Anfam, "Clyfford Still's Art: Between [he Quick �nd the Dead
,
" Cord
Still: Paimillgs /944-1960, James Demelrion, ed. (shington: Hirshhorn
Museum �nd Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, 2001): 36.
51
Clyfford Still, "Statement (1959)," Theories of denl Art, cd. Herschel. B. Chipp
(Berkeley: University of California Press,
1969): 574-575.
52
Clyfford Still to Betty Parsons, March 10, 1948, quoted in Serg Guilbaut, H
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p cxxxii.
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132 ANARCHY AND ART
l Yo rk
Stole the Idea of Modem Art: Abstracf Expssio nism, Fedom, alld the Cold
a r,
Arthur Goldhammer, [rans. (Chicago: Uni\'ersi[y of Chicago Press, 1983):
201. On the critical appropriation of abstract painting hy Still and others to the
cause of the Cold War, see ibid., 166-194.
53 Richard Candida Smith,
Utopia alld Disslt: A,·t, Portry, and Politics ill Calomia
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995): 102.
54
Auping, "An Imerview with Jess," 20.
55 Ibid.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid., 25.
58
Jennifer Terry, All rl'11triCll OhstiOll: Scinl', lHt'd icillt, fwd H0/0xlty ill
iHodrnt Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999): 329-352.
59 Ibid.,
Ill.
60 Seymour Howard, UKing Ubu: Gallery in a Theater," Th Brat Gtllrmrioll
Cd/tries fld Hq01/d, John I-Iatsoulas, cd. (Davis, CA: John Natsoulas Press,
1996): 23. On Jarry's "Ubu" character, sec Patricia Leighten, "The 'hi1e Peril
and L'Art ncgre: Picasso, Primitivism, and Anticolonialism," Art Blllleti1l 72
(December, 1990): 611-612.
61 Howard,23.
62 I bid., 26-27.
63 According to RobertJ. Bertholf, domestic households became a locus of activ
ity in San Francisco during the 1950s, thanks in putto the example of Collins
and Duncan. Among other projects, Collins and Duncan held poetry readings
and performances in their home. See RohertJ. Bertholf, "The Coneen: Roben
Duncan Writing Out of Painting," Jm: A Grand Collage, 1951-1993, 75-76. They
also participated in a co-operati\'e puhlication, The Artist View (1951-1954),
which circulated privately amongst the panicipants. Each issue wa� produce(1 by
an individual in the group. See Smirh, 236.
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p cxxxiii.
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CHAPTER 7
BREAKOUT FROM THE PRISON
HOUSE OF MODERNISM
An inteiew with Susan Siens Bietila
The 19GOs afC rightly vicwu as a tiIll of n:ncwal in the history of twcn
rieth-century anarchism, when mass uprisings in places as far Rung
S the United Sttes, Frnce, Ce.choslovl ki) :md Mexic
o
chllenged
the status quo in explicitl
y anti-authoritarian terms.
In America, the
civil
rights movement merged with the anti-Vietnam War movement,
giving
ris
e to a richly diverse counterculture with strong anarchist
currents that carried over into the
19705. Marxist turned anarchist
Murray Bookchin nicely encapsulated the gulf between the old left
and the emergent counterculture. Reca
lling
Marxist-dominated poli
t
ics prior to the 19605, he wrote:
'
Life-sryle?'-the word was simply unknown. If we were asked
by some crazy anarchists how we could hope to change society
without changing ourselves, our relations with each other, and
our organizational structure, we had one ritualistic answer: '
... after the revolution.' 'After the revolution ... .'-this was our
magiC talisman. It expressed our incredibly naive belief thar
merely by 'abolishing' the economic rela
ti
onsh
i
ps and insti
tutions of capitalism we would thereby abolish the bourgeois
fa
mi
ly, the bou
r
g
eoi
s stare, and bourge o
i
s attitudes towards
sexuality, wom
en, children, indeed toward people and life as
a whole. (The gross deception here-a deception which lies at
III
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p cxxxiv.
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134 ANARCHY AND ART
the very core of Marxism-is that changes in the pre-condi
tions of soc
iety and life are equiv
a
l
ent to changes in the condi
tions of society and life, a fallacy which blatant
l
y mistakes the
sufcient reason for the necessary reason.) And this 'beautiful
revolution' would be realized by using bourgeois methods o
f
organization and involved bourgeois relations between people.
totally fa iled to recognize that our methods and relations
were
subverting our goals, indeed our very personalities as
revolutionaries. I
Contemporary "Youth Culture," on the other hand, was rife
with potential: "In its demands for tribalism, free sexuality, commu
nity, mutual ai, e:static experience, an a ualance eculugy," wrote
Bookchin, it pregured, "however inchoately, a joyous communist and
bssless societ fr.ed from the trllmels of hieffch
y
:l1ld dOl1lin
ti
on, a societ
y
that would transcend the historic split
s between town
and country, individual and society, and mind and body."2
The
1960s did indeed mark a sea change, at least in terms of who
was articulating what radicalism was. For example, this was the era
when Noam Chomsky began speaking out against the fo
reign policies
of the United States government from an anarchist viewpoint. While
Chomsky critiqued American p
olitics, Bookchin popularized anar
chism's ecological dimension. At the time, anarchist-feminism was re
newed in part thanks to the tireless efforts of Alex Kates Shulman and
Richard Drinnon to promote the life and writings of Emma Goldman.
In the previous chapters,
I discussed gay poet Robert Duncan and his
role in the American poetry scene; a second voice championing liber
t
arian sexuality was social theorist Paul Goodman, author of the best
seller G1'owing Up Absll d (1960). In additi
o
n, poets Diane di Prima,
Gary Snyder, and others promoted connections between anarchism,
poetics, and spirituality while John Cage explored its musical rami
cations. Finally, the Living Theatre collective developed and popu
larized their distinctive variation of anarchist-pacism in the United
States and Europe.
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p cxxxv.
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BrtaKo/lt fr om tbt Prin HO/lit oI Modtmiml 135
I have long been interested in what role anarchist visual artists
played during these years.
I was fo rtunate, then, to make the acquain
tance of one of anarchism's better-known contemporary artists, Susan
Simensky Bietila. During the 1960s, she worked as an illustrator for
the activist press in New York while completing an undergraduate
degree in art under the tutelage of prominent abstractionist painters.
In the fo llowing interview, conducted by email, she sheds consider
able light
on the ways in which the mainstream art world of the 1960s
maintained a separation of art and politics at the same time as the
American counterculture was fa iling
realize its anarchic potential.
What was it like growing up in New York?
I was born in 1947 and grew up working-class in Brooklyn. The com
m\lnity WS lr
g
ely
Fstern F\lropCn Jewish, nd my ( m ily lived in
Federal Housing Project apartment. hen I was a kid, I was recruited
our of kindergarten on an art scholarship
the Brooklyn Museum
School; by the time
1 was six, I was traveling on the subway by myself
to Saturday art classes. I went to the High School of Music
& Art and
had studio classes as well as art history. There I met bohemian teens
from Greenwich Village and heard about the existence of the anti
nuclear bomb group, Student Peace Union.)
My political activism began in the summer of 1964
when I worked
at Camp Tw in Link, run by covert Communist Party USA mem
bers. This same camp also ran a neighborhood after-school program
I had attended as a child. It was linked to the Atlanta School of Social
Wo rk, which was a hotbed of civil rights activism and connected with
the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee.� Other counsel
ors were civil rights activists and college students who were in the
Students for a Democratic Society [SDS],5 Many of them had been
sent to this or other political summer camps as children by their left
ist parents. At the camp,
I was caring for ve-year-old boys and less
than delighted with this sort of work, being too poor
have been sent
to summer camp myself, and fe eling as if there was some hypocrisy
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p cxxxvi.
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136 ANARCHY AND ART
at essentially being a nanny for radicals. I fo und out about the war in
Vietnam and the United States' role in it from Paul lillman, another
counselor at the camp who was in SDS at Antioch College. He scolded
me for not reading the news and fo llowing world affairs, and
I took
this advice to heart. There was also an adjoining teen work camp-all
b
lac
k
teens from projects near the one where r lived. They were there
on scholarship, to be reformed out of their "gang-loving ways." They
gOt
be kids, but I had to work. While there, I gained class awareness
and developed a suspicion of traditional "left" politics.
In the fa ll of 1964, I went to Brooklyn College, City University
of New York [CUNY1, as part of the Scholars Program for students
gifted in mathematics and the hard sciences, but soon became an art
maJor.
Npw York W n intpnp plcP to hp, politiclly ppking, during thi
time. What organizations were you involved in at CUNY?
The rst group I was involved in was Brooklyn College's equivalent
of the Berkeley Free Speech Iovement-the Ad Hoc Committee for
Academic Fr eedom, which included faculty as well as students.6 As
at B
e
rk
eley, students who had braved confrontations during the civil
rights voter registration drives in the south returned to school to nd
their own political expression severely restricted. The hypocrisy of
this being the "norm" at a prestigious institution of higher learning
fueled the creation of a powerful movement on campus.
Then SDS. I can't recall exactly when in 1965 the SDS chapter at
Brooklyn College was formed. There were older students at Brooklyn
College who had been politically active for several years and were in
contact with the students who started SDS. There were also "travel
ers" who visited college campuses and helped organize. I was active in
SOS from the time that there were
a few hundred members nationally
until tens of thousands were involved, and my political understanding
grew exponentially. My thinking developed with the organization to
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p cxxxvii.
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Brfnkout rm/ Ihf PriiO HOif of ModfntiSI
137
the poim where we named the United States governmem "imperial
ist" and called for defeat in Vietnam.
I was elected chapter "president"-or was volunteered, as the posi
tion was meningless within the consensus dynamics of the group,
but
helpful for functioning on campus. All student groups had to be
registered
and app
roved by the student council and the administra
tion required a "President-Vice President-Secretary-Treasurer"
structure. Only ofcers could reserve rooms, and submit posters to
be approved for display, etc. I was probably elected because I was safe
in
my standing as a student, since I was in the Scholar's Program and
getting high grades
. It was good theater to have the official spokesper
son of the most radical group on campus be a fa irly inarticulate seven
ten-year-okl girl who looku even younger than her age_ It pokeu fun
at the Administration's "Red Menace" fe ar-mongering stereotypes.
Whtever the reS0ns for
my
selection) the tnlst th e
.
other steot
activists had in me bolstered my self-condence.
The college president, Harry Gideonse, was at the time the head
of Freedom House, a "liberal" anti-Communist think tanklaca
demic wing of the government's drive to stamp out domestic radi
calism
fo llowing Wo rld Wa r IU He had instituted bureaucracies to
stie freedom of political expression aftcr conducting a marc blatant
reign of terror in the 1950s, when fa culty were required to sign anti
Communist "loyalty oaths" and were subjected to political inquisi
tions. Many were red for having
unacceptable political ideas. Lots
of students had been expelled as well. In 1950, Gideonse dissolved the
student government and closed the college newspaper,
The Vt 1gum-d,
using bogus excuses, but really because they were bases of opposition
to his agenda. During the early 1960s, students were expelled for par
ticipating in an anti-nukes protest. I heard about it later in the 1960s
from Jerry Badanes, who was active in Movement for a Democratic
Society [MDS], the non-student wing of SDS. If my recall is correct,
he was one of the students expelled. During an air raid drill, when
students were supposed to go to basement areas marked as nuclear
shelters, a number of students reclined on the steps of Boylan Hall,
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p cxxxviii.
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138 ANARCHY AND ART
the main building, each holding a sun reector, the kind used at the
beach to get a speedy tan, as if from the flash of light that preceded
the mushroom cloud. This was an act of civil disobedience, but more
impressively, it was my rst exposure to
d0'lIfJ1t.s
When I started college, every leaet and poster had to be approved
by
the Dean of Student Activities, Archie McGregor, or it would be
torn down by employees from the Ofce of Student Activities. All
invited "outside" speakers had to be approved-all lms or presenta
tions as well. Prohibitions against walking on the grass and a dress
code for female students were rigorously enforced. There was a secu
rity guard in front of the library whose job was to tu away women
wearing pants. It was quite the model police state. Inspired by the
Free Speech Movcmcnt, somc oluer stuUCntS whu hau ucn invulvu
in the civil rights movement and some faculty, particularly from the
dep:(Tllen(S
of sociology
:md philosophy, Prof.ssor Rkhrd Mendes,
and Dr. Sitton, came together to organize for academic freedom. I was
on the steering committee of this group and a meeting was held at my
house. Nlother was awed; she served coffee and pastries. The student
council got involved, as did the Yo ung Democrats [youth recruitment
wing of the Democratic Party]-both the student government and
fa culty council, and they overtued the censorship powers of the ad
min
istration. Harry Gideonse decided that it was the opportune time
to retire. This cleared the way for more fr eedom to agitate against
the Vietnam War and the military draft, issues that had immediate
impact on every male student.
The SDS chapter grew steadily and included students with vari
ous political leanings. It remained somewhat counter-cultural, over
lapping with the bohemian, fol k-singing, pot-smoking sector of the
student community. Trotskyists and the Communist Party USA had
their own student groups, which attracted few if any new students."
The Progressive Labor Party [PLP], however, was active within our
SDS chapter and caused distrust against us within the national or
ganization, although anyone who took the trouble to get to know us
realized quickly that, despite being very visible, the PLP didn't domi-
Antliff, Allan (Author). Anarchy and Art : From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Vancouver, BC, CAN: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. p cxxxix.
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BrrnKout the Prisoll HO of ModerllisI 139
nate the chapter.1O The head of student organizing for the PLP, Jeff
Gordon, was in the Brooklyn College Chapter of SDS and was one
of the people subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American
Activities Committee IHUACj, along with future YippieJerry Rubin,
in 1966.11 Rubin was there because he had been one of the organizers
of the Vietnam Day Committee which protested against the waf in
Berkeley. I went to Washington to demonstrate against HUAC short
ly after the Brooklyn College SDS chapter was fo rmed.
I was the representative of the Brooklyn College chapter to the
New York Regional Council and
the National Council of SDS,
which was as important for my political development as the grassroots
organizing at Brooklyn College.
gOt me Out of New York for the
rst tiIll in Illy Iif; I IIlt pcopl fWIIl all ovt
:
r AIIlrica, IIlany fW IIl
different backgrounds and cultures.
A Itho�lgh T WS nowhere dose to heing regiOTl 1 or n;1tiOTll lcder,
I
met other people like me, made interesting friends, and had oppor
tunities I never would have otherwise had. Terry Davis, the chapter
representative from the Borough of Manhattan Community College,
who also grew up in a housing project, was my age and more worldly.
She taught me to dance, and took me and Bobby Quidone, who was
gay, to the Newport Folk Festival to talk to artists about doing a ben
et for SDS.
got invited to all-night parties and road trips with
auent Argentine-Jewish Brecht Theatre acionados, one of whom
dated a playwright friend ofSDS organizer Sarah Murphy. Sarah later
married one of the student leaders of the 1968 uprising in Mexico
City.12
I rst heard of the situationists from them, I
believe.13
So you were getting a real political education from the time you entered
university. What impact did this have on your art and did politics seep
into your art classes?
Though I was an activist, I didn't do college work with political con
tent. A number of artists from the New Yo rk abstractionist school
taught at Brooklyn College. The art fa culty whom I remember were