The Revolution: 1968 & the Politics of the Arts in the United States

The Revolution: 1968 & the Politics of the Arts in the United States 

Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès

November 22, 2018 

Symposium cosponsored by CAS EA 801 (UT2J) and EMMA (Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3) 

Organized by Zachary Baqué, Claude Chastagner, Emeline Jouve

50 years after 1968, a key year in the history of the world and that of the United States, two symposiums tackling the artistic dimension of 1968 in the US are organized by the Universities of Toulouse – Jean Jaurès and Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3. The first celebrations of this anniversary tend to point out the obvious parallels between 1968 and 2018 in the US, by either comparing the political and social situations in both eras or by elevating 1968 as the year which, in retrospect, can explain what is happening today.[1] It appears necessary to keep on exploring 1968, as emblematic of the 1960s[2], by focusing on the way arts and culture may have supported or, on the contrary, hindered political movements and how they may have shaped the commemoration of 1968.

If the historiography of 1968 revolutionary movements is quite dense, that of the artistic expressions which developed along the Movement is rather limited. This can be partly explained by the dichotomy, already analyzed by Barry Keith Grant[3] about the films of the time, between the political upheavals as expressed by the arts (Saul Levine’s New Left Note or the Newsreel films: Columbia, Summer of ’68) and the films that were popularly or critically acclaimed (The Graduate, Oliver!, Planet of the Apes). This contradiction between the retrospective memory of an activist and militant year and the rather consensual cultural production of that same year deserves to be questioned anew. Beyond the protest movements that were widely reported on in the media at the time and that have been extensively researched since, this symposium wishes to discuss the position and role of artistic and cultural productions in the political and social events of 1968.

1968 was an artistic revolution. The dialectics between art and society was particularly intense, which is why questioning the “politics of the arts” seems particularly relevant. This phrase can include not only the relation between the arts and politics, that is the organization of public life by authorities and citizens, but also the internal structure of these works of art, their poetics, and the institutional organization of artistic production.

The politics of the arts in 1968 can be tackled in the following manners:

• Political works: the political turn of American society and the various rebellions of the end of the 1960s gave way to artistic creations and 1968 witnessed the birth of forms and contents meant to translate this revolutionary mood. Echoing the discourses of the time, these works were political in the broad sense of the term because they represented and/or accompanied these struggles. The first staging of Hair and Boys in the Band are just two examples. Beyond these works with an obvious political intent, it is also pertinent to analyze the way some works, which were not explicitly political (films like 2001, A Space Odyssey, Night of the Living Dead, High School, dance shows like The Education of H*Y*M*A*N*K*A*P*L*A*N, The Lady of the House of Sleep, novels such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick or Ursula Le Guin’s The Wizard of Earthsea), may have led in 1968 to intense interpretative debates so as to reveal their political potentials. Frank Zappa’s ironic take on the Beatles (We’re Only In It for The Money) and Sly and the Family Stone’s gendered ethnic blend (Dance to the Music) also participated in the political turn of artworks. A number of poets took a firm stand against the Vietnam War (Robert Bly, Muriel Rukeyser).[4] This list of political works could also include N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn, based on real-life occurrences.

• An aesthetic revolution. The socio-political context encouraged artists to create works that might formally represent the political struggles of the time, which led them to revolutionize the very form of their media of choice. Some artists clearly affirmed the militant nature of their works, the goal of which was to trigger a shift in social norms and which were understood as political action. The artistic medium was not simply a receptacle for the thematic and formal representation of politics, it was meant to be a tool of agit-prop explicitly calling for a transformation of American society through revolution. Thus, following the introduction of Guerilla Theater in the US by the San Francisco Mime Troupe, politically committed plays were presented. In 1968, the Living Theater created Paradise Now, which, after its French premiere, toured the US. The play intended to transform the spectator into a prelapsarian New Man, entirely made of love. The spectator was meant to become an actor and a participant, thus destroying the limit between the stage and the auditorium, between fiction and reality. In RainForest, his collaboration with Andy Warhol, Merce Cunningham also included daily objects in the fiction, once again eroding the classical opposition art/life. Another type of formal rupture would be the emergence of a binary and electric rock in Miles Davis’ jazz (Miles in the Sky) or, conversely, the emergence of an experimental form of jazz in Jimi Hendrix’s blues (Electric Ladyland). Other examples may include the exploration of the phallus in Louise Bourgeois’ Janus fleuri or of concrete in Isamu Noguchi’s Octero. Poet Diane DiPrima started writing her Revolutionary Letters whose form she intended to be well-suited for public performance. Blending nostalgia for the previous decade and political awareness of then-current events, Allen Ginsberg wrote “Elegies for Neal Cassady” in response to the death of the Beat Generation hero (in February 1968). John Barth’s formal experimentation in Lost in the Funhouse could also be reinterpreted in light of its political context.

• The immediate representations of 1968 as event. The way 1968 prompted artists to experiment on the most adequate way to represent the events of the year will be at the heart of the symposium’s questions. 1968 indeed challenged the established classifications of artworks. For example, the traditional opposition between fiction and documentary became obsolete in Medium Cool, shot partly in Chicago during the summer protests against the Democratic Convention. American Revolution 2, another documentary using Chicago as a backdrop, oscillates between the observational mode and a more overtly militant approach. Similarly, how can John Olson’s photographs of the Vietnam War both record and criticize the war? In literature, the attempts of New Journalism, such as Norman Mailer’s Miami and the Siege of Chicago, also use 1968 as a fruitful object. The symposium will thus analyze how 1968 destroyed the classificatory limits inside artworks that wished to represent it.

• New modes of distribution. In order to create this ideal new spectator who would also be an activist citizen, 1968 artists also strived to offer new channels of distribution by privileging new spaces of artistic expression: leaving the country as in the case of the Living Theater, screening films in alternative locations as for the Newsreel groups, destabilizing public spaces (happenings or Valerie Solanas’ assassination attempt against Andy Warhol), or acting within the criticized system (the appearances of the Yippies on television). How far can this decentering of culture and art toward their margins be understood as political activism? It may be relevant to discuss the marginalization of art and culture in its paradoxical relation to institutions. In 1968, artistic or state institutions showed interest for works outside the mainstream. Do the official end of the Hays Code, the way Broadway welcomed Hair (after a few significant modifications of the original version), and the support Alvin Ailey’s dance company received from the US State Department (Revelationscelebrating African-American resistance was shown during the opening ceremony of the Mexico Olympic Games) all mark a certain liberalization of American politics in 1968 and the impact of public diplomacy?

These four categories are not meant to be mutually exclusive, as evidenced by the Black Arts Movement which could be included in all of them. All artworks (theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, literature or hybrid forms) made or released in 1968 can become the basis for a paper. In 2019, a second symposium in Montpellier will deal with the artistic and cultural impact of 1968.

The following themes may be tackled. The list is by no means restrictive.

–           The artistic translation of theoretical debates and of political actions

–           The immediate representation of 1968 events

–           The analogy between the body politic and the natural body and the function of the body in artworks

–           The relation between works and their audience: the spectator’s active role in 1968 productions

–           Intermediality

–           The relation between artists and official institutions

–           Violence

–           Psychedelic, artistic and political forms

Proposals, in English or French, must be sent to Zachary Baqué Zachary.baque@univ-tlse2.fr, Claude Chastagner claude.chastagner@univ-montp3.fr and Emeline Jouve emeline.jouve@gmail.com before June 22, 2018. They will be limited to 400 words and include a short bio.