Antifascism in American Art by Cécile Whiting (review)

begin to see evidence in films, design, art". The exhibit ranged from artworks to furniture and appliance design, to sound works. The artists and designers, all Australians, included graphic designerJane Joyce, product designer Anthony Kitchener, photographer Dominic Lowe, furniture designer Marc Newson, artist Robert Owen, composer Paul Schutze, artist Liz Strirling and graphic designer Michael Trudgeon. The catalogue also includes a number of responses by international designers . The essayists include Nuccio Bertone, Peter Ellyard, Helga Kuhse, Alberto Morelli, Herron Associates and Cedric Price. Australian scientist Mark Oliphant's response included the comment that "a scientist feels humble before the immensity of the Universe, or the complexities of space, matter and radiation. He worries about the misuse of increasing knowledge. As designers you have not captured what the resulting machines do to life, liberty, morality or art. Yet the words and sentiments of your written letter tell me that you are aware, and that you care." The work illustrated in the catalogue supports this assertion. Design and art demonstrating an "ambivalence towards technology " have been produced during most of this century, and the work exhibited has strong ties to this tradition . It is, however, unarguable that the end of this century is typified by an ambivalence towards technology that was not prevalent at the tum of the previous century. That this will be manifested in contemporary art and design as a distinct style or approach is likely; this catalogue is an interesting exploration of the issues and documentation of the work of artists and designers seeking to make visible this ambivalence. The catalogue, which is beautifully produced, is also accompanied by a compact disk of the exhibit soundtrack by Paul Schutze and is available from Extreme GPO, Box 2627X, Melbourne 3001, Victoria, Australia for $30.00. ANTIFASCISM IN AMERICAN ART by Cecile Whiting. Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, CT, U.SA., 1989. 238 pp., illus. Trade, $32.50. ISBN:0-300-04259-0. Reviewed byElmer H. Duncan, Department ofPhilosophy, Baylor University , Waco, TX 76798, U.S.A. This is a fascinating book, a well-written and superbly illustrated historical study. As the title indicates, it is concerned with antifascist art in America during the period 1933-1945. Those of adult age in the United States today were born and educated in an America that saw communist Russia as our greatest international threat, the 'evil empire'. Whiting reminds us that this was not always the mainstream American perception of communism. The economic crash of 1929 made many Americans think that capitalism had failed. And Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933. Both of these events led many Americans to seek another system of government. Russian communism seemed to many to be the logical alternative. It is also well known that Hitler's fascist regime had at its disposal many fine artists and filmmakers who did many works portraying the Fuhrer and his ally, Italy's Mussolini, as heroic figures, leading Europe to a glorious new age. Mussolini was often portrayed as renewing the glories of the Roman Empire. American artists, chiefly of a communist persuasion, retaliated. In publications such as Leftward and The New Masses, the painters William Gropper and George Grosz, among others, showed the fascist leaders as monstrous (frequently, skeletal or barbaric ) figures confronted by gallant young men in working garb, flying a red flag with the hammer and sickle. The workers would stop the fascist advance. Gropper and his friends often copied the work of artists such as Goya, who had also depicted the horrors of war. Favorite topics were helpless civilians shot by the invading fascist soldiers, or long lines of refugees forced to flee their homes, going nowhere in particular. Whiting's book also addresses various problems of the antifascist movement and its art. This was a period , of course, in which many of the better artists advocated some sort of abstract art. But they also wanted their art to be simple enough for the masses to understand. As one example , Stuart Davis tried to combine Modernism and Marxism. In his paintings , and also in many essays, Davis argued that the American progressive industrial society, the society of the machine, was best portrayed in the...