Russian avant-garde artists deliberately fused aesthetic and political revolution

Evidence

Malevich claimed that ‘Cubism and Futurism were the revolutionary forms in art foreshadowing the revolution in political and economic life of 1917.’ And now the two revolutions, aesthetic and political, would be united by the sublation of art in a transformed social life. Mayakovsky declared in November 1918: ‘We do not need a dead mausoleum of art where dead works are worshipped, but a living factory of the human spirit - in the streets, in the tramways, in the factories, workshops and workers’ homes.’ — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 242

Categorization

• CANDY: Mayakovsky’s line about a ‘living factory of the human spirit’ is a quotable, striking bit of revolutionary rhetoric.
• XREF: connects to: Avant-garde art depends on concrete political conditions, not just aesthetic logic — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 243; Avant-garde artists framed their work as needed for an impending new era — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York…, 1519; The avant-garde sought to dissolve art into life praxis, not integrate art into it

Broader Connections

• Avant-garde artists framed their work as needed for an impending new era #expands (0.85) — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1519
• The avant-garde sought to dissolve art into life praxis, not integrate art into it #expands (0.80)