Calling George Grosz
As I mentioned a few posts back, Isaac and I spent last Saturday afternoon at the National Gallery of Art celebrating a friend's birthday. After we saw the "Cézanne in Provence" exhibition, our stated goal for the afternoon, we went to the East Wing to the the Dada Exhibit. It was a good, comprehensive and informative, presentation of the Dada movement — I think we can safely call it a "movement". It was organized by geography: Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York, and Paris.
In my youth I felt much closer to the excitement and purposes of Dada than I do now in middle age, when Cézanne seems more profound to me. Nevertheless, I was fascinated and gratified that I finally could see in person and up close so many pieces that had once energized my artistic leanings, and happy to learn more about the artists and their times.
Even though the personal relevance of many of the pieces seems to be receeding into the past, there's still a bit of the old fire left in me. I was particularly moved, fascinated, troubled, etc., by seeing various works of George Grosz in the Berlin room. (Although Grosz was an American, he nevertheless was born and died in Germany).
We were told that Dada was a reaction to the horrors of World War I. True, but that assertion by itself doesn't go very far in explaining anything. But the drawings and paintings of George Grosz! His work was powerful, no-holds-barred statements satirizing corporate and political corruption and those groups' complicity in war-time atrocities and tragedies. I'd seen some of these works before, but they seem ever more powerful when one is standing right in front of them.
There was a case displaying a handful of prints from a collection whose name, unfortunately, escapes me right now. One I remember showed a group of predatory animals sitting around a table — were they playing cards? — with various platitudes coming out of their mouths, facile statements about how good the economy was, or how well the war goes — you get the point now, I'm sure. These pieces resonated so strongly with our current political situation in the US that it felt like the floor in the gallery was moving. I didn't find a link to those prints, alas, perhaps because I can't remember the name! However, we did see the piece called "Republican Automatons", which applies almost as perfectly to the US in 2006 as it did in Germany in 1920.
Where, oh where is George Grosz when we need him? Where are the artists who believe in speaking the truth, and who believe that they can affect society through their work? Perhaps successes in the past has created too much complacency, but we need it again. We could use a few new George Groszes, or Jean Genets, or Samuel Becketts.
I guess it may be because art is a language I understand, but I believe that art can effect change, and that the best way to expose the corruption we live with is through brutal, honest satire — and I certainly don't mean the flaccid, sophomoric attempts at humor that passes for "satire" on television and in movies these days. We need some creative, subversive art before it's too late.
I would write the manifesto myself, but I feel too old now to do it justice. However, I can see the need more clearly than ever.
Maybe the Dada exhibit had more personal relevance than I realized.