Andrew Hemingway. Marxism in Art History
Andrew Hemingway in conversation with Helmut Draxler and Kerstin Stakemeier
The art historical writings of Andrew Hemingway (Emeritus Professor at University College London and a current guest professor Freie Universität Berlin) mark a central position within the discourses of Marxism in modern art history, a discourse that has had far too few repercussions within the German speaking art history. With its pivotal problematization of modernist art history in terms of the economic factors and the political engagements that surrounded and identified it, Marxist art history seems much needed today, at a time when, with the failure of neoliberal economies, modernism seems to be more ever present, ever more current.
Hemingway’s latest publication „The Mysticism of Money“ (2013) discusses American Precisionist painting of the 1920s with regard to its „romantic anti-capitalism“, while his earlier „Artists on the Left“ (2002) mapped out the multiple and intense relations of the visual artists and the communist movement in the US in the first half of the 20th century.
We want to use this evening to conduct a conversation about both publications, that addresses the relationship between them and the art historical sensibility that lies at their core. This will not least be a discussion between Andrew Hemingway, Helmut Draxler and Kerstin Stakemeier about the presentness of Marxist art history.
Andrew Hemingway, Artists on the Left. American Artists and the Communist Movement 1926-1956, Yale University Press (2002)
Andrew Hemingway, The Mysticism of Money: Precisionist Painting and Machine Age America, Periscope Publishing (2013)
Warren Carter, Barnaby Haran, Frederic J. Schwartz (Hrsg.), ReNew Marxist Art History, Art / Books (2014)
