Memory, art and the social condition

ABSTRACT

Theodor Adorno once famously declared: ‘To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’. An opposing proposition: without poetry, and more generally speaking, without the arts, we cannot successfully confront modern barbarism. This paper explores this opposing proposition by closely analysing three works of art and how they have made it possible to confront difficult pasts – Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Paweł Pawlikowski’s film, Ida, and Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The central argument of the paper is that it is particularly in the creation and appreciation of art that the challenges of memory (and forgetting), as important dilemmas knitted into the fabric of social life, ‘the social condition’, are successfully confronted.

KEYWORDS:

• Memory
• art
• social condition

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For a quick sampling of Arbus’s work see: https://www.google.com/search?q=diane±arbus±photos&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiq66-dnrvMAhVJ2D4KHWiTDf8QsAQIHA&biw=1440&bih=710.

2 In this article, I am considering the problematic of forgetting and remembering in a pretty straight-forward way. The complexities of how memory can be institutionalised, as can forgetting, is put to the side, even though it is important. To highlight this issue, I see the problem as a dialogue between Maurice Halbwachs and Walter Benjamin, between positions that maintain respectively that our memory of the past is a creation of present collective practices and understandings, and one that says we can excavate pearls from the past to find alternatives to the present, as it has institutionalised past practices.

3 See Jones (2011) and Woodly (2016).

4 For details see the Museum’s homepage: http://nmaahc.si.edu/.

5 For documentation of the racist qualities of the New Deal, see Katznelson ( 2 006).

6 Wilson (1978, 2011).

7 Barnes (2016).

8 The following discussion of the Polish debate is taken from Polonsky and Michlic (2003).

9 Bikont ( 2 015).

10 The analysis here is taken from Goldfarb (1991).

11 For insightful account of the accomplishments of Pawlikowski, see Denby (2014).

12 Listen to Studio 360 podcast, which gives a beautiful account of the way Lin’s memorial has changed the way difficult pasts are collectively remembered: http://www.wnyc.org/story/american-icons-the-vietnam-veterans-memorial.

13 My guide for thinking about the sociological dimensions of the memorial is the classic study by Schwartz and Wagner-Pacifici (1991).

14 Major works developing this critical insight include: Adorno and Horkheimer (2007), Marcuse (1979), and Lowenthal (1957).

15 I conclude on this optimistic note, but am aware that this potential does not mean that there are not much less hopeful consequences of art’s potential political implications. Autonomous art opens up the opportunity, but whether that opportunity will be realised is another matter.