Anarchism
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...
has long had an association with the
arts
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both hi ...
, particularly with visual art, music and literature. This can be dated back to the start of anarchism as a named political concept, and the writings of
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Socia ...
on the French
realist painter
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
. In an essay on Courbet of 1857 Proudhon had set out a principle for art, which he saw in the work of Courbet, that it should show the real lives of the
working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
es and the injustices working people face at the hands of the
bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
.
The French novelist
Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of ...
objected to Proudhon advocating freedom for all in the name of anarchism, but then placing stipulations on artists as to what they should depict in their works.
[Michael Paraskos, ''Four Essays on Art and Anarchism'' (Mitcham: Orage Press, 2015) p.26f] This opened up a division in thinking on anarchist art which is still apparent today, with some anarchist writers and artists advocating a view that art should be propagandistic and used to further the anarchist cause, and others that anarchism should free the artist from the requirements to serve a patron and master, allowing the artist to pursue their own interests and agendas. In recent years the first of these approaches has been argued by writers such as Patricia Leighten and the second by
Michael Paraskos
Michael Paraskos, FHEA, FRSA (born 1969) is a novelist, lecturer and writer on art. He has written several non-fiction and fiction books and essays, and articles on art, literature, culture and politics for various publications, including ''Art ...
.
Significant writers on the relationship between art and anarchism include Proudhon,
Peter Kropotkin
Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (; russian: link=no, Пётр Алексе́евич Кропо́ткин ; 9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist, socialist, revolutionary, historian, scientist, philosopher, and activis ...
,
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read ...
,
Alex Comfort
Alexander Comfort (10 February 1920 – 26 March 2000) was a British scientist and physician known best for his nonfiction sex manual, ''The Joy of Sex'' (1972). He was an author of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as a gerontologist, ...
,
George Woodcock
George Woodcock (; May 8, 1912 – January 28, 1995) was a Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, a philosopher, an essayist and literary critic. He was also a poet and published several volumes of travel wri ...
,
David Goodway
David Goodway (born 1942) is a British historian and a respected international authority on Chartism and on anarchism and libertarian socialism.
Life
Goodway was born in the English Midlands town of Rugby in 1942. He studied Philosophy, Politic ...
,
Allan Antliff
__NOTOC__
Allan W. Antliff is an anarchist activist, art critic, author and founding member of the Toronto Anarchist Free School (now Anarchist U) who has written extensively on the topics of anarchism and art in North America since the 1980s.
...
and
Cindy Milstein
Cindy Milstein is an American Anarchist, anarchist activist based in Brooklyn. They are an Institute for Anarchist Studies board member.
They have also been involved with the Institute for Social Ecology, and are currently a board member with t ...
. Despite this history of a close relationship between art and anarchism some anarchist writers such as Kropotkin and Read have argued that in an anarchist society the role of the artist would disappear completely as all human activity would become, in itself, artistic. This is a view of art in society that sees creativity as intrinsic to all human activity whereas the effect of bourgeois
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
has been to strip human life of its creative aspects through industrial standardisation, the atomisation of production processes and the
professionalisation
Professionalization is a social process by which any trade or occupation transforms itself into a true "profession of the highest integrity and competence." The definition of what constitutes a profession is often contested. Professionalization ten ...
of art through the education system.
For some writers, art and anarchism artists would not disappear as they would continue to provide an anarchist society with a space in which to continue to imagine new ways of understanding and organising reality as well as a space in which to face possible fears. This is similar to
Noël Carroll
Noël Carroll (born 1947) is an American philosopher considered to be one of the leading figures in contemporary philosophy of art. Although Carroll is best known for his work in the philosophy of film (he is a proponent of cognitive film theory) ...
's theory of the function of horror stories and films in current society: "Art-horror is the price we are willing to pay for the revelation of that which is impossible and unknown, of that which violates our conceptual schema."
Overview
About anarchism and the arts, historian
David Goodway
David Goodway (born 1942) is a British historian and a respected international authority on Chartism and on anarchism and libertarian socialism.
Life
Goodway was born in the English Midlands town of Rugby in 1942. He studied Philosophy, Politic ...
wrote:
Anarchism had a significant influence on
French Symbolism
Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...
of the late 19th century, such as that of
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of ...
, who was quoted as saying "''Je ne sais pas d'autre bombe, qu'un livre.''" (I know of no bomb other than a book.) Its ideas infiltrated the cafes and cabarets of turn-of-the-century Paris (see the Drunken Boat #2).
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
’s 1891 essay "
The Soul of Man under Socialism" has been seen as advocating anarchism. Oscar Wilde "stated in an interview that he believed he was ‘something of an Anarchist’, but previously said, ‘In the past I was a poet and a tyrant. Now I am an anarchist and artist.’"
Many American artists of the early 20th century came under the influence of anarchist ideas, while others embraced anarchism as an ideology. The
Ashcan School
The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, was an artistic movement in the United States during the late 19th-early 20th century that produced works portraying scenes of daily life in New York, often in the city's poorer neighborhoods.
...
of American realism included anarchist artists, as well as artists such as
Rockwell Kent
Rockwell Kent (June 21, 1882 – March 13, 1971) was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, writer, sailor, adventurer and voyager.
Biography
Rockwell Kent was born in Tarrytown, New York. Kent was of English descent. He lived much of ...
(1882–1971) and
George Bellows
George Wesley Bellows (August 12 or August 19, 1882 – January 8, 1925) was an American realism, American realist painting, painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City. He became, according to the Columbus Museum of Art ...
(1882–1925) who were influenced by anarchist ideas.
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
also included anarchist artists such as
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Latv ...
and painters such as
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
, who had adopted radical ideas during his experience as a muralist for the
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
. Pollock's father had also been a
Wobbly
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...
.
David Weir has argued in ''Anarchy and Culture'' that anarchism only had some success in the sphere of cultural avant-gardism because of its failure as a political movement; cognizant of anarchism's claims to overcome the barrier between art and political activism, he nevertheless suggests that this is not achieved in reality. Weir suggests that for the "ideologue" it might be possible to adapt "
aesthetics
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...
to
politics
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
", but that "from the perspective of the poet" a solution might be to "adapt the politics to the aesthetics". He identifies this latter strategy with anarchism, on account of its
individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-reli ...
. Weir has also suggested that "the contemporary critical strategy of aestheticizing politics" among
Marxists
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectic ...
such as
Fredric Jameson
Fredric Jameson (born April 14, 1934) is an American literary critic, philosopher and Marxist political theorist. He is best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends, particularly his analysis of postmodernity and capitalism. James ...
results from the demise of Marxism as a
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
ideology. "The situation whereby ideology attempts to operate outside of politics has already pointed Marxism toward postmodernist culture, just as anarchism moved into the culture of modernism when it ceased to have political validity".
Late 20th century examples of anarchism and the arts include the
collage
Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...
works by
James Koehnline
James Irvin Koehnline () is an American collage artist whose work has appeared in many anarchist periodicals and books, as well as music CDs. He has co-edited a number of books and had his work collected in ''Magpie Reveries''. He designs and edi ...
,
Johan Humyn Being, and others whose work was being published in anarchist magazines such as ''
Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed'' and
''Fifth Estate''.
The Living Theatre
The Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group in the United States. For most of its history it was led by its founders, actress Judith Malina and painter/po ...
, a theatrical troupe headed by
Judith Malina
Judith Malina (June 4, 1926 – April 10, 2015) was a German-born American actress, director and writer. With her husband, Julian Beck, Malina co-founded The Living Theatre, a radical political theatre troupe that rose to prominence in New York C ...
and
Julian Beck
Julian Beck (May 31, 1925 – September 14, 1985) was an American actor, stage director, poet, and painter. He is best known for co-founding and directing The Living Theatre, as well as his role as Reverend Henry Kane, the malevolent preacher i ...
, were outspoken about their anarchism, often incorporating anarchistic themes into their performances.
In the 1990s, anarchists became involved in the
mail art
Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, is an artistic movement centered on sending small-scale works through the postal service. It initially developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence Schoo ...
movement – "art which uses the postal service in some way". This relates to the involvement of many anarchists in the
zine
A zine ( ; short for '' magazine'' or '' fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published
Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to writ ...
movement. Some contemporary anarchists make art in the form of
flyposters, stencils, and radical puppets.
Visual art
19th-century realism
Visual art was considered one of the most important aspects of anarchist activity from the birth of anarchism, with
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Socia ...
writing on his friend and contemporary
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
in the essay "Du Principe de l'art", published 1865, that 'The task of art is to warn us, to praise us, to teach us, to make us blush by confronting us with the mirror of our own conscience.' Courbet also went on to paint Proudhon on several occasions. Similarly Courbet wrote in 1850:
Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism
Among the
Impressionists
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...
the artist
Camille Pissarro
Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( , ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but t ...
is known to have had strong anarchist sympathies which led him to recommend to his children that they change their surnames to avoid being associated with his political beliefs. Pissarro's anarchism brought him into contact with the younger artists who formed the
Neo-Impressionist
Neo-Impressionism is a term coined by French art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe an art movement founded by Georges Seurat. Seurat's most renowned masterpiece, '' A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte'', marked the beginn ...
group, particularly
Paul Signac
Paul Victor Jules Signac ( , ; 11 November 1863 – 15 August 1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the Pointillist style.
Biography
Paul Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863. H ...
,
Henri-Edmond Cross
Henri-Edmond Cross, born Henri-Edmond-Joseph Delacroix, (20 May 1856 – 16 May 1910) was a French painter and printmaker. He is most acclaimed as a master of Neo-Impressionism and he played an important role in shaping the second phase of t ...
,
Charles Angrand
Charles Angrand (19 April 1854 – 1 April 1926) was a French artist who gained renown for his Neo-Impressionist paintings and drawings. He was an important member of the Parisian avant-garde art scene in the late 1880s and early 1890s.
Early li ...
,
Théo van Rysselberghe
Théophile "Théo" van Rysselberghe (23 November 1862 – 13 December 1926) was a Belgian neo-impressionist painter, who played a pivotal role in the European art scene at the turn of the twentieth century.
Biography
Early years
Born i ...
and Maximillien Luce, who were active in anarchist circles, particularly those of the political activist
Jean Grave
Jean Grave (; October 16, 1854, Le Breuil-sur-Couze – December 8, 1939, Vienne-en-Val) was an important activist in the French anarchist and the international anarchist communism movements. He was the editor of three major anarchist periodica ...
, who encouraged other anarchist activists to embrace the potential of art to further their cause. In their collaborations they established a tripartite relationship between art and anarchism, still debated to this day, in which the artist could be employed for direct propagandistic purposes, or could show images of the true condition of the proletariat, or, more controversially, envision future realities towards which an anarchist revolution might aspire. It is in this latter context that the bucolic images of the south of France by artists such as Cross and Signac should be viewed as anarchist paintings.
Cubism and futurism
![Anarchistanti-copart](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Anarchistanti-copart.jpg)
Patricia Leighten has shown that Spanish
cubist
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
painter
Juan Gris
José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...
was an artist with strong anarchist sympathies, although she argues this is only evident in his overtly political cartoons. She suggests his cubist still lives, deliberately eschewed anarchist subject matter so that he 'self-consciously drained his paintings of political import, avoiding such anarchist subjects as prostitutes and neutralised his radical style'. However, drawing on the principle established by Neo-Impressionist artists such as Cross and Signac, that anarchist art can also involve visualising alternative realities for an anarchist society,
Michael Paraskos
Michael Paraskos, FHEA, FRSA (born 1969) is a novelist, lecturer and writer on art. He has written several non-fiction and fiction books and essays, and articles on art, literature, culture and politics for various publications, including ''Art ...
has criticised this reading of Gris's paintings, saying that this form of anarchism seems to demand that 'artists conform to a predetermined template to define their work as radical. Cartoons of prostitutes are anarchist; paintings of bottles, playing cards and fruit are not.'
Though typically not associated with
futurism
Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such ...
, anarchism had some minor influence on
Futurism
Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such ...
. Carlo Carrà's best known work was ''
The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli
''The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli'' (''Il Funerale dell’anarchico Galli'') is a painting by Italian painter Carlo Carrà. It was finished in 1911, during the artist's futurist phase, and is considered Carrà's most famous piece. The piece d ...
'', painted in 1911. In the 1912 catalogue for the Futurists' first Parisian exhibition
Umberto Boccioni
Umberto Boccioni (, ; 19 October 1882 – 17 August 1916) was an influential Italian painter and sculptor. He helped shape the revolutionary aesthetic of the Futurism movement as one of its principal figures. Despite his short life, his approach ...
remarked ''"the sheaves of lines corresponding to all the conflicting forces, following the general law of violence"'' which he labeled ''force lines'' encapsulating the Futurist idea of
physical transcendentalism.
Mark Antliff has suggested that this futurist aesthetic was "designed to involve the spectator in the very politics that led to Italy's intervention in World War I and, ultimately, to the rise of
Fascism
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
in Italy". The art historian
Giovanni Lista
Giovanni Lista is an Italian art historian and art critic born in Italy on February 13, 1943, at Castiglione del Lago (Perugia) and resides in Paris. He is a specialist in the artistic cultural scene of the 1920s, particularly in Futurism.
Biogra ...
has identified this aesthetic as first appearing in the
anarcho-syndicalist
Anarcho-syndicalism is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionary industrial unionism or syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and thus control influence in b ...
current, where
Marinetti
Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti (; 22 December 1876 – 2 December 1944) was an Italian poet, editor, art theorist, and founder of the Futurist movement. He was associated with the utopian and Symbolist artistic and literary community Abbaye d ...
encountered the Sorelian "myths of action and violence".
The
individualist anarchist
Individualist anarchism is the branch of anarchism that emphasizes the individual and their Will (philosophy), will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions and ideological systems."What do I mean by individualism? I mean ...
philosopher and poet
Renzo Novatore
Abele Rizieri Ferrari (May 12, 1890 – November 29, 1922), better known by the pen name Renzo Novatore, was an Italian individualist anarchist, illegalist and anti-fascist poet, philosopher and militant, now mostly known for his posthumously p ...
belonged to the leftist section of futurism alongside other individualist anarcho-futurists such as
Dante Carnesecchi,
Leda Rafanelli
Leda Bruna Rafanelli (1880–1971) was an Italian publisher, anarchist, and prolific author.
Early life
Leda Bruna Rafanelli was born on July 4, 1880, in Pistoia, Italy. After finishing elementary school, she became an apprentice at a local ...
,
Auro d'Arcola, and Giovanni Governato.
Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
was both an artistic and political movement aims at the liberation of the human being from the constraints of
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
, the state, and the cultural forces that limit the reign of the imagination. From its origins individualist anarchists like
Florent Fels
Ferdinand Florent Fels (14 August 1891, Paris – 26 January 1977, Cap-d'Ail) was a French journalist, publisher and author prominent in discussing art in France. He often used the pseudonym Felsenberg.
In 1919 he pooled his demobilisation bonus ...
opposed it with his magazine ''Action: Cahiers individualistes de philosophie et d'art''. However faced with the popularity of surrealism Fels' magazine closed in 1922. The movement developed in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
in the wake of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
with
André Breton
André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...
(1896–1966) as its main theorist and poet. Originally it was tied closely to the
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
. Later, Breton, a close friend of
Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
, broke with the Communist Party and embraced anarchism, even writing in the publication of the French
Anarchist Federation.
By the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
the surrealist group led by Breton had decided to explicitly embrace anarchism. In 1952 Breton wrote "It was in the black mirror of anarchism that surrealism first recognised itself."
"Breton was consistent in his support for the
francophone Anarchist Federation and he continued to offer his solidarity after the
Platformist
Platformism is a form of anarchist organization that seeks unity from its participants, having as a defining characteristic the idea that each platformist organization should include only people that are fully in agreement with core group ideas, r ...
s around
Fontenis transformed the FA into the Federation Communiste Libertaire. He was one of the few intellectuals who continued to offer his support to the FCL during the
Algerian War
The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...
(1954–1962) when the FCL suffered severe repression and was forced underground. He sheltered Fontenis whilst he was in hiding. He refused to take sides on the splits in the French anarchist movement and both he and Peret expressed solidarity as well with the new FA set up by the synthesist anarchists, and worked in the Antifascist Committees of the 1960s alongside the FA."
Post-war modernism
In the period after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
the relationship between art and anarchism was articulated by a number of theorists including
Alex Comfort
Alexander Comfort (10 February 1920 – 26 March 2000) was a British scientist and physician known best for his nonfiction sex manual, ''The Joy of Sex'' (1972). He was an author of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as a gerontologist, ...
,
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read ...
and
George Woodcock
George Woodcock (; May 8, 1912 – January 28, 1995) was a Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, a philosopher, an essayist and literary critic. He was also a poet and published several volumes of travel wri ...
. Although each wrote from perspectives supportive of
modernist art
Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the trad ...
they refused to accept the position put forward by
Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formal ...
that modernist art had no political, social or narrative meaning, a view that would have curtailed an anarchist reading of modern art. In his study on the relationship between modern art and radical politics, Social Radicalism and the Arts,
Donald Drew Egbert
Donald Drew Egbert (May 12, 1902 – January 3, 1973) was an American art historian and educator, who taught for many years at Princeton University.
Career
Born in Norwalk to George Drew and Kate Estelle Powers, Egbert graduated from Princeton ...
argued that in fact, modern artists were often most at home with an anarchist understanding of the position of the place of the artist in society than either a de-politicised Greenbergian or a
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
understanding of the role of art.
Contemporary art
In contemporary art anarchism can take diverse forms, from
carnivalesque
Carnivalesque is a literary mode that subverts and liberates the assumptions of the dominant style or atmosphere through humor and chaos. It originated as "carnival" in Mikhail Bakhtin's ''Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics'' and was further develope ...
street art, to
graffiti art
Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...
and
graphic novel
A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
s, to various traditional forms of art, including painting, sculpture, video and photography.
Music
![PunkNotDead-graffiti](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/PunkNotDead-graffiti.jpg)
A number of performers and artists have either been inspired by anarchist concepts, or have used the medium of music and sound in order to promote
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
ideas and politics. French singers-songwriters
Léo Ferré
Léo Ferré (24 August 1916 – 14 July 1993) was a French-born Monégasque poet and composer, and a dynamic and controversial live performer, whose career in France dominated the years after the Second World War until his death. He released s ...
and
Georges Brassens
Georges Charles Brassens (; 22 October 1921 – 29 October 1981) was a French singer-songwriter and poet.
As an iconic figure in France, he achieved fame through his elegant songs with their harmonically complex music for voice and guitar and a ...
are maybe the first to do so, in the fifties and beyond.
Punk rock is one movement that has taken much inspiration from the often potent imagery and symbolism associated with anarchism and
Situationist
The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution ...
rhetoric, if not always the political theory. In the past few decades, anarchism has been closely associated with the punk rock movement, and has grown because of that association (whatever other effects that has had on the movement and the prejudiced pictures of it). Indeed, many anarchists were introduced to the ideas of Anarchism through that symbolism and the anti-authoritarian sentiment which many punk songs expressed.
Anarcho-punk
Anarcho-punk (also known as anarchist punk or peace punk) is ideological subgenre of punk rock that promotes anarchism. Some use the term broadly to refer to any punk music with anarchist lyrical content, which may figure in crust punk, hardcor ...
, on the other hand, is a current that has been more explicitly engaged with anarchist politics, particularly in the case of bands such as
Crass
Crass were an English art collective and punk rock band formed in Epping, Essex in 1977, who promoted anarchism as a political ideology, a way of life, and a resistance movement. Crass popularised the anarcho-punk movement of the punk s ...
,
Poison Girls
The Poison Girls were an English anarcho-punk band from Brighton. The singer/guitarist, Vi Subversa, was a middle-aged mother of two at the band's inception, and wrote songs that explored sexuality and gender roles, often from an anarchist pers ...
, (early)
Chumbawamba
Chumbawamba () were a British rock band formed in 1982 and disbanded in 2012. They are best known for their 1997 single "Tubthumping", which was nominated for Best British Single at the 1998 Brit Awards. Other singles include "Amnesia", " Enou ...
,
The Ex,
Flux of Pink Indians
Flux of Pink Indians was an English punk rock band from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England, active between 1980 and 1986.
Biography
The band formed in Hertfordshire, England in 1980 from the remaining members of The Epileptics (who ...
,
Rudimentary Peni
Rudimentary Peni are a British anarcho-punk band formed in 1980, emerging from the London anarcho-punk scene. Lead singer/guitarist Nick Blinko is notorious for his witty, macabre lyrics and dark pen-and-ink artwork, prominently featured on a ...
,
The Apostles,
Riot/Clone
Riot/Clone was a punk band often associated with the anarcho-punk scene, active from 1979 to 1983 and then revived in the early 1990s until they split up again in 2005. The band were originally known as ''Riot'' but the name became ''Riot/Clo ...
,
Conflict
Conflict may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Films
* ''Conflict'' (1921 film), an American silent film directed by Stuart Paton
* ''Conflict'' (1936 film), an American boxing film starring John Wayne
* ''Conflict'' (1937 film) ...
,
Oi Polloi, Sin Dios,
Propagandhi
Propagandhi is a Canadian punk rock band formed in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba in 1986 by guitarist Chris Hannah and drummer Jord Samolesky. The band is currently located in Winnipeg, Manitoba and completed by bassist Todd Kowalski and guitari ...
,
Citizen Fish
Citizen Fish is an English punk rock band that has been active since 1990 and shares members with Subhumans. Citizen Fish does not emphasize the raw political statements and nihilistic viewpoint of the former, instead focusing on issues of ...
,
Bus Station Loonies
The Bus Station Loonies are a British cabaret punk band from Plymouth, England. They have been described as a cross between Splodgenessabounds and Crass. Original Loonies Tony Popkids (drums) and Chris "Felcher" Wheelchair (real name Chris Wi ...
etc. Many other bands, especially at the local level of unsigned groups, have taken on what is known as a "punk" or "
DIY
"Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and semi ...
" ethic: that is, Doing It Yourself, indeed a popular Anarcho-punk slogan reads "DIY not
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...
", a reference to a conscious rejection of the major record company. Some groups who began as 'anarcho-punk' have attempted to move their ideas into a more mainstream musical arena, for instance, Chumbawamba, who continue to support and promote anarchist politics despite now playing more dance music and pop influenced styles. The
Folk Punk
Folk punk (known in its early days as rogue folk) is a fusion of folk music and punk rock. It was popularized in the early 1980s by the Pogues in England, and by Violent Femmes in the United States. Folk punk achieved some mainstream success in ...
genre also heavily explores anarchist ideas in an inherently DIY fashion.
Pat the Bunny
''Pat the Bunny'' is the first "touch and feel" interactive children's book, written and illustrated by Dorothy Kunhardt. Since its publication in 1940, it has been a perennial best-seller in the United States. Rather than follow a linear narra ...
,
Ramshackle Glory
Patrick Schneeweis, known better by his stage name Pat the Bunny, is a retired American musician, singer-songwriter and producer. He has been the front man of notable folk punk and anarcho-punk groups Johnny Hobo and the Freight Trains, Wingnut Di ...
,
The Taxpayers,
Mischief Brew
Mischief Brew was an American folk punk band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania consisting of vocalist and guitarist Erik Petersen, bassist Shawn St. Clair, and drummers Christopher Petersen and Christopher Kulp. The band played DIY folk punk and an ...
, and
Days N Daze
Days N' Daze is an American band formed in Houston, Texas performing a type of folk punk they have called 'H-Town Thrashgrass'. Promoting a strong DIY ethic, Days N' Daze independently records, produces, and promotes all their own music. Song the ...
are examples of thematically anarchist folk punk bands.
Techno music
Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time (4/4) and often ch ...
is also connected strongly to anarchists and eco-anarchists, as many of the events playing these types of music are self-organised and put on in contravention of national laws. Sometimes doors are pulled off empty warehouses and the insides transformed into illegal clubs with cheap (or free) entrance, types of music not heard elsewhere and quite often an abundance of different drugs. Other raves may be held outside, and are viewed negatively by the authorities. In the UK, the Criminal Justice Bill (1994) outlawed these events (
raves
A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...
) and brought together a coalition of
socialists
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the eco ...
, ravers and
direct action
Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...
ists who opposed the introduction of this 'draconian' Act of Parliament by having a huge 'party&protest' in the Centre of London that descended into one of the largest riots of the 1990s in Britain.
Digital hardcore
Digital hardcore is a fusion genre that combines hardcore punk with electronic dance music genres such as breakbeat, techno, and drum and bass while also drawing on heavy metal and noise music. It typically features fast tempos and aggressive ...
, an
electronic music
Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...
genre, is also overtly anarchist;
Atari Teenage Riot
Atari Teenage Riot (ATR) is a German band formed in Berlin in 1992. Highly political, they fuse left-wing, anarchist and anti-fascist views with punk vocals and a techno sound called digital hardcore, which is a term band member Alec Empire use ...
is the most widely recognized digital hardcore band. Both Digital Hardcore, Techno and related genres are not the sole preserve of anarchists; people of many musical, political or recreational persuasions are involved in these musical scenes.
Heavy metal bands such as Sweden's
Arch Enemy
Arch Enemy is a Swedish melodic death metal band, originally a supergroup from Halmstad, formed in 1995. Its members were in bands such as Carcass, Armageddon, Carnage, Mercyful Fate, Spiritual Beggars, The Agonist, Nevermore, and Eucharist. ...
and Germany's
Kreator
Kreator is a German thrash metal band from Essen, formed in 1982. Their current lineup consists of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Miland "Mille" Petrozza, drummer Jürgen "Ventor" Reil, lead guitarist Sami Yli-Sirniö, and bassist Frédér ...
have also embraced anarchistic themes in their lyrics and imagery. The genre of
folk punk
Folk punk (known in its early days as rogue folk) is a fusion of folk music and punk rock. It was popularized in the early 1980s by the Pogues in England, and by Violent Femmes in the United States. Folk punk achieved some mainstream success in ...
or "radical folk" has become increasingly prevalent in protest culture, with artists like
David Rovics
David Stefan Rovics (born April 10, 1967) is an American indie singer/songwriter. His music concerns topical subjects such as the 2003 Iraq war, anti-globalization, anarchism, and social justice issues. Rovics has been an outspoken critic of ...
openly asserting anarchist beliefs.
Negativland
Negativland is an American experimental music band which originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. They took their name from a Neu! track, while their record label (Seeland Records) is named after another Neu! track. The core ...
's ''
The ABCs of Anarchism
''The ABCs of Anarchism'' is an EP by American electronic group Negativland and British rock band Chumbawamba. A three-track collection, it incorporates samples of songs from Chumbawamba's ''Tubthumper'' (1997) as well as music by the then-curre ...
'' includes a reading of material from
Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman (November 21, 1870June 28, 1936) was a Russian-American anarchist and author. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century, famous for both his political activism and his writing.
B ...
's ''
Now and After
''Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism'' is an introduction to the principles of anarchism and anarchist communism written by Alexander Berkman. First published in 1929 by Vanguard Press, ''Now and After'' has been reprinted many times, ...
'' and other anarchist-related material in a sound collage.
Spichard Rencer is a notable anarchist
Powerviolence
Powerviolence (sometimes written as power violence) is an extremely dissonant and fast subgenre of hardcore punk which is closely related to thrashcore and grindcore. In contrast with grindcore, which is a "crossover" idiom containing musical ...
group from
Tampa, Florida
Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and ...
.
Paul Gailiunas and his late wife
Helen Hill
Helen Wingard Hill (May 9, 1970 – January 4, 2007) was an American artist, filmmaker, writer, teacher, and social activist. When her final film, ''The Florestine Collection'', was released in 2011, curators and critics praised her work and leg ...
co-wrote the anarchist song "
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the ...
", which was performed by the band Piggy: The Calypso Orchestra of the Maritimes and released on their 1999 album ''Don't Stop the Calypso: Songs of Love and Liberation''.
After Helen and Paul moved to
, Paul started a new band called The Troublemakers and re-released the song "Emma Goldman" on their 2004 album ''Here Come The Troublemakers''.
Proclaiming the motto "It's your duty as a citizen to troublemake," other songs on the album include "International Flag Burning Day."
The Charter of the Forest'' which invented the genre of "Read-Opera," is a combination poetic-musical work which espouses anarchist ideas of opposition to hierarchy, as well as being highly influenced by a
Tolstoyan
The Tolstoyan movement is a social movement based on the philosophical and religious views of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). Tolstoy's views were formed by rigorous study of the ministry of Jesus, particularly the Sermon on the Mo ...
commitment to
nonviolence
Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...
.
Artists and artworks inspired by anarchism
Visual arts
*
Christopher D'Arcangelo
Christopher D’Arcangelo (23 January 1955 – 28 April 1979) was an American artist who worked in the 1970s until his death in 1979. He was the son of the American painter Allan D'Arcangelo.
Career
Anarchy protests
In 1975, he performed a series ...
*
Enrico Baj
Enrico Baj (October 31, 1924 – June 15, 2003)June 15 according to the Guardian, June 17 according to the-artists.org was an Italian artist and writer on art. Many of his works show an obsession with nuclear war. He created prints, sculptur ...
(''Funeral Of The Anarchist Pinelli'')
*
Beehive Collective
The Beehive Design Collective is a Volunteering, volunteer-driven non-profit Artist collective, art collective that uses graphical media as educational tools to communicate stories of Resistance movement, resistance to corporate globalization. Th ...
*
Carlo Carrà
Carlo Carrà (; February 11, 1881 – April 13, 1966) was an Italian painter and a leading figure of the Futurist movement that flourished in Italy during the beginning of the 20th century. In addition to his many paintings, he wrote a number ...
(''
The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli
''The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli'' (''Il Funerale dell’anarchico Galli'') is a painting by Italian painter Carlo Carrà. It was finished in 1911, during the artist's futurist phase, and is considered Carrà's most famous piece. The piece d ...
'')
*
Carlos Cortez
Carlos Cortez (August 13, 1923 – January 19, 2005) was a poet, graphic artist, photographer, muralist and political activist, active for six decades in the Industrial Workers of the World.
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1923, the son of a ...
*
Flavio Costantini
*
Eric Drooker
*
Marcel Duchamp
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
*
Mike Flugennock
*
Clifford Harper
Clifford Harper (born 13 July 1949 in Chiswick, West London) is a worker, illustrator, and militant anarchist. He wrote ''Anarchy: A Graphic Guide'' in 1987. He is a long-term contributor to ''The Guardian'' newspaper and many other publications. ...
*
Stewart Home
Kevin Llewellyn Callan (born 24 March 1962), better known as Stewart Home, is an English artist, filmmaker, writer, pamphleteer, art historian, and activist. His novels include the non-narrative ''69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess'' (2002), an ...
*
Donald Judd
Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism (a term he nonetheless stridently disavowed).Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In ...
*
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...
*
James Koehnline
James Irvin Koehnline () is an American collage artist whose work has appeared in many anarchist periodicals and books, as well as music CDs. He has co-edited a number of books and had his work collected in ''Magpie Reveries''. He designs and edi ...
*
Latuff
*
Josh MacPhee
Josh MacPhee is an artist, curator, stonemason and activist living in Brooklyn, New York.
Career
Josh MacPhee's work as a socially-engaged artist and designer focuses on production and distribution of political graphics. Originally from Hol ...
*
Louis Moreau
Louis Moreau (1883–1958) was a French wood-engraver
Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image or ''matrix'' of images into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, whe ...
*
Arthur Moyse
Arthur Moyse (21 June 1914 – 22 February 2003) was an Anglo-Irish anarchist, artist and writer.
Biography
In his youth he was actively involved in political activity including the battle of Cable Street in 1936. He also saw active service ...
*
Paul Signac
Paul Victor Jules Signac ( , ; 11 November 1863 – 15 August 1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the Pointillist style.
Biography
Paul Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863. H ...
*
Georges Seurat
Georges Pierre Seurat ( , , ; 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough su ...
*
Walter Swennen
Walter Swennen (born 1946 in Brussels, Belgium) is a Belgian artist who lives and works in Brussels.
Work
Originally trained as a printmaker, Swennen’s early career revolved around poetry, philosophy and artistic happenings. In the early ...
*
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
*
Juan Gris
José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...
*
Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense o ...
*
Richard Olmsted
*
Roberto Paci Dalò
Roberto Paci Dalò is an Italian author, composer and musician, film maker and theatre director, sound and visual artist, radio-maker. He is the co-founder and director of the performing arts ensemblGiardini Pensiliand he has been the artistic d ...
*
Stass Paraskos
Stass Paraskos ( el, Στας Παράσκος; 17 March 1933 – 4 March 2014) was an artist from Cyprus, although much of his life was spent teaching and working in England.
Early life
Paraskos was born in Anaphotia, a village near the city ...
*
Francis Picabia
Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism ...
*
Camille Pissarro
Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( , ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but t ...
*
Sigmar Polke
Sigmar Polke (13 February 1941 – 10 June 2010) was a German painter and photographer.
Polke experimented with a wide range of styles, subject matters and materials. In the 1970s, he concentrated on photography, returning to paint in the 1980s ...
*
José Guadalupe Posada
José Guadalupe Posada Aguilar (2 February 1852 – 20 January 1913) was a Mexican political lithographer who used relief printing to produce popular illustrations. His work has influenced numerous Latin American artists and cartoonists becaus ...
*
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Latv ...
*
Winston Smith Winston Smith may refer to:
People
* Winston Smith (artist) (born 1952), American artist
* Winston Smith (athlete) (born 1982), Olympic track and field athlete
* Winston Boogie Smith (born ), American man killed by law enforcement in 2021
* Winst ...
*
Seth Tobocman
Seth Tobocman (born 1958) is a radical comic book artist who has been living in Manhattan's Lower East Side since 1978. Tobocman is best known for his creation of the political comic book anthology ''World War 3 Illustrated'', which he started ...
*
Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin ( – 31 May 1953) was a Russian and Soviet painter, architect and stage-designer. Tatlin achieved fame as the architect who designed The Monument to the Third International, more commonly known as Tatlin's Tower, whi ...
*
Gee Vaucher
Gee Vaucher (born 1945 in Dagenham, Essex, England) is a visual artist.
Biography
Vaucher met her long-lasting creative partner Penny Rimbaud in the early 1960s when both were attending the South-East Essex Technical College and School of Ar ...
*
David Chichkan
*
Lee Wells
Lee Wells (born 1971) is an artist, independent curator, and a technology and art consultant based New York. He is a co-founder of Peanut Underground Art Projects in New York. He is a co-founder and director of IFAC-arts, and a co-founder of P ...
*
Avoid pi
Comics and sequential art
*
J. Daniels
** ''
The Adventures of Tintin: Breaking Free''
*
Roberto Ambrosoli
**
Anarchik
*
Alan Grant
**
Anarky
Anarky is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Co-created by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle, he first appeared in ''Detective Comics'' #608 (November 1989), as an adversary of Batman. Anarky is introduced as ...
** ''
Batman: Anarky''
*
Jay Kinney
Jay Kinney (born 1950) is an American author, editor, and former underground cartoonist. Kinney has been noted for "adding new dimensions to the political comic" in the underground comix press of the 1970s and '80s.
Kinney was a member, along wi ...
** ''
Anarchy Comics
''Anarchy Comics'' is a series of underground comic books published by Last Gasp between 1978 and 1987, as part of the underground comix subculture of the era. Edited by Jay Kinney (#1-3) and Paul Mavrides (#4), regular contributors to ''Anarchy C ...
''
*
Alan Moore
Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English author known primarily for his work in comic books including ''Watchmen'', ''V for Vendetta'', ''The Ballad of Halo Jones'', ''Swamp Thing'', ''Batman:'' ''The Killing Joke'', and ''From Hell' ...
** ''
V for Vendetta
''V for Vendetta'' is a British graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd (with additional art by Tony Weare). Initially published between 1982 and 1985 in black and white as an ongoing serial in the British antholog ...
''
*
Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison, MBE (born 31 January 1960) is a Scottish comic book writer, screenwriter, and producer. Their work is known for its nonlinear narrative
A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, w ...
** ''
The Invisibles
''The Invisibles'' is a comic book series published by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics from 1994 to 2000. It was created and scripted by Scottish writer Grant Morrison, and drawn by various artists throughout its publication.
The series loosel ...
''
*
Donald Rooum
Donald Rooum (20 April 1928 – 31 August 2019) was an English anarchist cartoonist and writer. He had a long association with Freedom Press who have published seven volumes of his ''Wildcat'' cartoons.
In 1963 he played a key role in exposin ...
** ''Wildcat Comics'', see the British newspaper ''
Freedom
Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving on ...
''
*
Chaz Wood
** ''The Black Flag'' (
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
)
Music
*
Georges Brassens
Georges Charles Brassens (; 22 October 1921 – 29 October 1981) was a French singer-songwriter and poet.
As an iconic figure in France, he achieved fame through his elegant songs with their harmonically complex music for voice and guitar and a ...
*
Léo Ferré
Léo Ferré (24 August 1916 – 14 July 1993) was a French-born Monégasque poet and composer, and a dynamic and controversial live performer, whose career in France dominated the years after the Second World War until his death. He released s ...
** ''
Amour Anarchie
''Amour Anarchie'' (English: ''Anarchy Love'') is a double album by Léo Ferré, released in 1970 by Barclay Records. With this album, heavily influenced by sexual revolution and considered by critics as one of his finest, containing a whole ...
''
** ''
Il n'y a plus rien
''Il n'y a plus rien'' (English: There Is No More) is an album by Léo Ferré, released in 1973 by Barclay Records. The general mood here is dark, both exasperated and desperate.
History
After having inserted two symphonic songs ("Ton style", "T ...
''
** ''
La Violence et l'Ennui
''La Violence et l'Ennui'' (English: ''Violence and Boredom'') is an album by Léo Ferré released in 1980 by RCA Records.
History
Léo Ferré reveals during interviews with French medias the mindset behind this album: for him, in 1980 "the time ...
''
*
Étienne Roda-Gil
Étienne Roda-Gil (1 August 1941 in Septfonds, Tarn-et-Garonne, France – 31 May 2004 in Paris) was a songwriter and screenwriter. He was an anarchist and an anarcho-syndicalist.
Biography
Roda-Gil was born in the Septfonds internment camp to r ...
** ''La Makhnovtchina''
Prose
*
Edward Abbey
Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author, essayist, and environmental activist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies. His best-known works include ''Desert Solit ...
** ''
The Brave Cowboy
''The Brave Cowboy'' (1956) was Edward Abbey's second published novel.
In 1993 Dream Garden Press produced a special limited edition of the book that includes an introduction by Kirk Douglas, who was the star in the film based on the book. I ...
''
** ''
Good News''
** ''
The Monkey Wrench Gang
''The Monkey Wrench Gang'' is a novel written by American author Edward Abbey (1927–1989), published in 1975.
Abbey's most famous work of fiction, the novel concerns the use of sabotage to protest environmentally damaging activities in the ...
''
*
Isaac Babel
Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel (russian: Исаак Эммануилович Бабель, p=ˈbabʲɪlʲ; – 27 January 1940) was a Russian writer, journalist, playwright, and literary translator. He is best known as the author of ''Red Cavalry'' ...
** ''Discourse on the "Tachanka"'', ''Collected Stories''
** ''Old man Makhno''
*
Iain M. Banks
** The
Culture series
The ''Culture'' series is a science fiction series written by Scottish author Iain M. Banks and released from 1987 through to 2012. The stories centre on The Culture, a utopian, post-scarcity space society of humanoid aliens, and advanced su ...
*
Don Bannister
Don, don or DON and variants may refer to:
Places
*County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON
* Don (river), a river in European Russia
* Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name
*Don, Benin, a town in Benin
* Don, Dang, a v ...
** ''
Hard Walls of Ego''
*
Ralph Bates
Ralph Bates (12 February 1940 – 27 March 1991) was an English film and television actor, known for his role in the British sitcom '' Dear John'' and the original ''Poldark''.
Biography
Bates was born in Bristol, England. His parents were bo ...
** ''
Lean Men
Lean, leaning or LEAN may refer to:
Business practices
* Lean thinking, a business methodology adopted in various fields
** Lean construction, an adaption of lean manufacturing principles to the design and construction process
** Lean governm ...
'' (1934)
*
Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman (November 21, 1870June 28, 1936) was a Russian-American anarchist and author. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century, famous for both his political activism and his writing.
B ...
** ''
Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist
''Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist'' is Alexander Berkman's account of his experience in prison in Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, in Pittsburgh, from 1892 to 1906. First published in 1912 by Emma Goldman's '' Mother Earth'' press, it has bec ...
''
912
Year 912 ( CMXII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
__NOTOC__
Events By place Byzantine Empire
* May 11 – Emperor Leo VI (the Wise) dies after a 26-year reign in wh ...
*
Horst Bienek
Horst Bienek (May 7, 1930 in Gleiwitz – December 7, 1990 in Munich) was a German novelist and poet.
Life
Born in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany (today Gliwice, Poland), Bienek was forced to leave there in 1945, when Germans were expelled ...
** ''
Bakunin: An Invention'' (1970)
*
André Breton
André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...
*
Albert Camus
Albert Camus ( , ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His work ...
*
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in t ...
** ''
The Secret Agent
''The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale'' is a novel by Joseph Conrad, first published in 1907.. The story is set in London in 1886 and deals with Mr. Adolf Verloc and his work as a spy for an unnamed country (presumably Russia). ''The Secret Agent' ...
'' (1907)
*
Stig Dagerman
Stig Halvard Dagerman (5 October 1923 – 4 November 1954) was a Swedish author and journalist prominent in the aftermath of World War II.
Biography
Stig Dagerman was born Stig Halvard Andersson in Älvkarleby, Uppsala County. He later took his ...
*
Samuel R. Delany
Samuel R. "Chip" Delany (, ) (born April 1, 1942), is an American author and literary critic. His work includes fiction (especially science fiction), memoir, criticism, and essays (on science fiction, literature, sexuality, and society). His ...
** ''
Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia'' (1976)
*
Philip K. Dick
** ''
The Last of the Masters'' (1954)
*
E L Doctorow
** ''
Ragtime
Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott ...
'' (1975)
*
Martin B. Duberman
Martin Bauml Duberman (born August 6, 1930) is an American historian, biographer, playwright, and gay rights activist. Duberman is Professor of History Emeritus at Herbert Lehman College in the Bronx, New York City.
Early life
Duberman was bo ...
** ''
Haymarket Haymarket may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Haymarket, New South Wales, area of Sydney, Australia
Germany
* Heumarkt (KVB), transport interchange in Cologne on the site of the Heumarkt (literally: hay market)
Russia
* Sennaya Square (''Hay Squ ...
'' (2003)
*
Greg Egan
Greg Egan (born 20 August 1961) is an Australian science fiction writer and amateur mathematician, best known for his works of hard science fiction. Egan has won multiple awards including the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Hugo Award, an ...
*
Dario Fo
Dario Luigi Angelo Fo (; 24 March 1926 – 13 October 2016) was an Italian playwright, actor, theatre director, stage designer, songwriter, political campaigner for the Italian left wing and the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature. I ...
** ''
Accidental Death of an Anarchist
''Accidental Death of an Anarchist'' ( it, Morte accidentale di un anarchico) is a play by Italian playwright Dario Fo that premiered in 1970. Considered a classic of 20th-century theater, it has been performed across the world in more than fort ...
''
*
William Godwin
William Godwin (3 March 1756 – 7 April 1836) was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism and the first modern proponent of anarchism. Godwin is most famous for ...
** ''
Caleb Williams
Caleb Williams (born November 18, 2001) is an American football quarterback for the USC Trojans. Williams played for the Oklahoma Sooners in 2021 before transferring to USC as a sophomore in 2022, where he won several player of the year awards, i ...
'' (1794)
*
Pietro Gori
Pietro Gori (August 1, 1865–January 8, 1911) was an Italian lawyer, journalist, intellectual and anarchist poet. He is known for his political activities, and as author of some of the most famous anarchist songs of the late 19th century, i ...
** ''
Primo Maggio'' (1895)
*
Frank Harris
Frank Harris (14 February 1855 – 26 August 1931) was an Irish-American editor, novelist, short story writer, journalist and publisher, who was friendly with many well-known figures of his day.
Born in Ireland, he emigrated to the United State ...
** ''
The Bomb'' (1908)
*
M. John Harrison
Michael John Harrison (born 26 July 1945), known for publication purposes primarily as M. John Harrison, is an English author and literary critic.Kelley, George. "Harrison, M(ichael) John" in Jay P. Pederson (.ed) ''St. James guide to sci ...
*
Jaroslav Hašek
Jaroslav Hašek (; 1883–1923) was a Czech writer, humorist, satirist, journalist, bohemian and anarchist. He is best known for his novel '' The Fate of the Good Soldier Švejk during the World War'', an unfinished collection of farcical incide ...
** ''
The Good Soldier Švejk
''The Good Soldier Švejk'' () is an unfinished satirical dark comedy novel by Czech writer Jaroslav Hašek, published in 1921–1923, about a good-humored, simple-minded, middle-aged man who pretends to be enthusiastic to serve Austria-Hungary i ...
''
*
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein (; July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accu ...
** ''
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
''The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress'' is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein about a lunar colony's revolt against absentee rule from Earth. The novel illustrates and discusses w:libertarian, libertarian ideals. It is r ...
''
*
Max Hertzberg
** ''Stealing The Future''
*
Henry James
Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
** ''
The Princess Casamassima
''The Princess Casamassima'' is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in ''The Atlantic Monthly'' in 1885 and 1886 and then as a book in 1886. It is the story of an intelligent but confused young London bookbinder, Hyacinth Robinson, ...
(1886)
*
Ba Jin
Ba Jin (Chinese: 巴金; pinyin: ''Bā Jīn''; 1904–2005) was a Chinese writer. In addition to his impact on Chinese literature, he also wrote three original works in Esperanto, and as a political activist he wrote '' The Family''.
Name
He w ...
** ''
The Family'' (1931)
*
Maurice Leblanc
Maurice Marie Émile Leblanc (; ; 11 December 1864 – 6 November 1941) was a French novelist and writer of short stories, known primarily as the creator of the fictional gentleman thief and detective Arsène Lupin, often described as a French c ...
**
Arsène Lupin
Arsène Lupin (French pronunciation: ʁsɛn lypɛ̃ is a fictional gentleman thief and master of disguise created in 1905 by French writer Maurice Leblanc. The character was first introduced in a series of short stories serialized in the magazi ...
books were inspired by
Marius Jacob
Alexandre Marius Jacob (September 29, 1879 – August 28, 1954), also known by the names Georges, Escande, Férau, Jean Concorde, Attila, and Barrabas, was a French anarchist illegalist.
Biography
Jacob was born in 1879 in Marseille to a work ...
*
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the '' Earthsea'' fantasy series. She was ...
** ''
The Dispossessed
''The Dispossessed'' (in later printings titled ''The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia'') is a 1974 anarchist utopian science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, one of her seven Hainish Cycle novels. It is one of a small number o ...
''
*
Emanuel Litvinoff
Emanuel Litvinoff (5 May 1915 – 24 September 2011) was a British writer and well-known figure in Anglo-Jewish literature, known for novels, short stories, poetry, plays and human rights campaigning.
Early years
Litvinoff's early years in what ...
** ''
A Death Out Of Season''
*
J. William Lloyd
J. William Lloyd (never using his given name John) (June 4, 1857 – October 23, 1940) was an American individualist anarchist
Individualist anarchism is the branch of anarchism that emphasizes the individual and their will over external de ...
*
John Henry Mackay
John Henry Mackay, also known by the pseudonym Sagitta, (6 February 1864 – 16 May 1933) was an egoist anarchist, thinker and writer. Born in Scotland and raised in Germany, Mackay was the author of '' Die Anarchisten'' (The Anarchists, 1891) an ...
** ''Der Schwimmer'' (1901)
*
Ken MacLeod
Kenneth Macrae MacLeod (born 2 August 1954) is a Scottish science fiction writer. His novels ''The Sky Road'' and ''The Night Sessions'' won the BSFA Award. MacLeod's novels have been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke, Hugo, Nebula, Locus, an ...
** Fall Revolution sequence
*
Leo Malet
** ''
Fog on the Tolbiac Bridge''
*
Ethel Mannin
Ethel Edith Mannin (6 October 1900 – 5 December 1984) was a popular British novelist and travel writer, political activist and socialist. She was born in London.
Life and career
Mannin's father, Robert Mannin (d. 1948) was a member of the So ...
** ''Red Rose''
** ''The Lover Under Another Name''
*
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical ref ...
** ''Tropic of Cancer''
*
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock (born 18 December 1939) is an English writer, best-known for science fiction and fantasy, who has published a number of well-received literary novels as well as comic thrillers, graphic novels and non-fiction. He has work ...
*
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
** ''
Homage to Catalonia
''Homage to Catalonia'' is George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations fighting in the Spanish Civil War for the POUM militia of the Republican army.
Published in 1938 (about a year before the war ended) with little com ...
'' (1938)
*
Michael Paraskos
Michael Paraskos, FHEA, FRSA (born 1969) is a novelist, lecturer and writer on art. He has written several non-fiction and fiction books and essays, and articles on art, literature, culture and politics for various publications, including ''Art ...
** ''In Search of Sixpence'' (2016)
*
Émile Pataud (and
Émile Pouget
Émile Pouget (12 October 1860 in Pont-de-Salars, Aveyron, now Lozère – 21 July 1931 Palaiseau, Essonne) was a French anarcho-communist,The Anarchist Papers III, page 97 who adopted tactics close to those of anarcho-syndicalism. He was vice-sec ...
)
** ''
How Shall We Bring About The Revolution?'' (1913)
*
Pedro de Paz
Pedro de Paz (born 26 October 1969 in Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 ...
** ''The Man Who Killed Durruti''
*
Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy (born March 31, 1936) is an American progressive activist and writer. Her work includes ''Woman on the Edge of Time''; ''He, She and It'', which won the 1993 Arthur C. Clarke Award; and ''Gone to Soldiers'', a New York Times Best ...
** ''
Woman on the Edge of Time
''Woman on the Edge of Time'' is a 1976 novel by Marge Piercy. It is considered a classic of utopian "speculative" science fiction as well as a feminist classic. The novel was originally published by Alfred A. Knopf. Piercy draws on several inspir ...
''
*
Emeric Pressburger
Emeric Pressburger (born Imre József Pressburger; 5 December 19025 February 1988) was a Hungarian-British screenwriter, film director, and producer. He is best known for his series of film collaborations with Michael Powell, in a collaborat ...
** ''
Killing a Mouse on Sunday
''Killing a Mouse on Sunday'' is a 1961 thriller novel by the British-Hungarian writer Emeric Pressburger, best known as a film producer. In Francoist Spain a Civil Guard officer attempts to lure a notorious exiled guerilla fighter back across t ...
''
*
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...
**
Against the Day
''Against the Day'' is an epic historical novel by Thomas Pynchon, published in 2006. The narrative takes place between the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the time immediately following World War I and features more than a hundred characters spr ...
(2006)
*
Adam Roberts
** ''
Salt
Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...
''
*
Olivia Olivia may refer to:
People
* Olivia (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name
* Olivia (singer) (Olivia Longott, born 1981), American singer
* Olívia (basketball) (Carlos Henrique Rodrigues do Nascimento, born 19 ...
& Helen Rossetti
** ''
A Girl Among the Anarchists'' (1903) by Isabel Meredith (fictional memoir)
*
Eric Frank Russell
Eric Frank Russell (January 6, 1905 – February 28, 1978) was a British writer best known for his science fiction novels and short stories. Much of his work was first published in the United States, in John W. Campbell's '' Astounding Science ...
** ''
...And Then There Were None'' (also here and here ) (1951; expanded into novel ''
The Great Explosion
''The Great Explosion'' is a satirical science fiction novel by English writer Eric Frank Russell, first published in 1962. The story is divided into three sections. The final section is based on Russell's 1951 short story "...And Then There We ...
'', 1962)
*
Ramon J. Sender
** ''
Seven Red Sundays'' (1932)
*
Victor Serge
Victor Serge (; 1890–1947), born Victor Lvovich Kibalchich (russian: Ви́ктор Льво́вич Киба́льчич), was a Russian revolutionary Marxist, novelist, poet and historian. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks fi ...
** ''
Birth of our Power''
** ''
Men in Prison''
*
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in seve ...
** ''
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
'' (1928)
*
Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
*
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...
*
B. Traven
B. Traven (; Bruno Traven in some accounts) was the pen name of a novelist, presumed to be German, whose real name, nationality, date and place of birth and details of biography are all subject to dispute. One certainty about Traven's life is ...
** ''Government'' (1931)
** ''The Carreta'' (1931)
** ''March to the Monteria'' (1933)
** ''The Troza'' (1936)
** ''The Rebellion of the Hanged'' (1936)
** ''The General From The Jungle'' (1940)
*
Lois Waisbrooker
Lois Waisbrooker (21 February 1826 – 3 October 1909) was an American feminist author, editor, publisher, and campaigner of the later nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. She wrote extensively on issues of sex, marriage, birth contr ...
*
Richard Whiteing
Richard Whiteing (27 July 1840 – 29 June 1928) was an English author and journalist.
Biography
Richard Whiteing was born in London the son of Mary Lander and William Whiteing, a civil servant employed as an Inland Revenue Officer. His mothe ...
** ''
No. 5 John Street''
*
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
*
Robert Anton Wilson
Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson; January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was an American author, futurist, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized within Discordianism as an Episkopos, pope and saint, Wilson ...
** ''
Illuminatus trilogy
''The Illuminatus! Trilogy'' is a series of three novels by American writers Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, first published in 1975.''Illuminatus!'' was written between 1969 and 1971, but not published until 1975 according to Robert Anto ...
''
** ''
Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati''
*
Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of ...
** ''
Germinal'' (1885)
** ''
The Debacle
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' (1892)
Poetry
*
Nestor Makhno
Nestor Ivanovych Makhno, The surname "Makhno" ( uk, Махно́) was itself a corruption of Nestor's father's surname "Mikhnenko" ( uk, Міхненко). ( 1888 – 25 July 1934), also known as Bat'ko Makhno ("Father Makhno"),; According to ...
*
Tony Blackplait
*
Sean Bonney
Sean Noel Bonney (21 May 1969 – 13 November 2019) was an English poet born in Brighton and brought up in the north of England. He lived in London and, from 2015 up until the time of his death, in Berlin. He was married to the poet Frances Kru ...
*
Raegan Butcher
CrimethInc., also known as CWC, which stands for either "CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective" or "CrimethInc Ex-Workers Ex-Collective", is a Decentralization, decentralized anarchist collective of autonomous Clandestine cell system, cells.
*
*
* Cr ...
*
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 17928 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achie ...
*
Voltairine De Cleyre
Voltairine de Cleyre (November 17, 1866 – June 20, 1912) was an American anarchist known for being a prolific writer and speaker who opposed capitalism, marriage and the State (polity), state as well as the domination of religion over sexuality ...
*
Hugo Dewar
Hugo Dewar (9 August 1908 – June 1980) was an author, poet, and political activist influential in co-founding two of the earliest British Trotskyist groups.
Dewar was born in Leyton in London in 1908. He joined the Independent Labour Party in 1 ...
** ''Barcelona'' (1936)
*
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. The author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, an ...
*
Léo Ferré
Léo Ferré (24 August 1916 – 14 July 1993) was a French-born Monégasque poet and composer, and a dynamic and controversial live performer, whose career in France dominated the years after the Second World War until his death. He released s ...
(also singer and musician)
*
Pietro Gori
Pietro Gori (August 1, 1865–January 8, 1911) was an Italian lawyer, journalist, intellectual and anarchist poet. He is known for his political activities, and as author of some of the most famous anarchist songs of the late 19th century, i ...
*
Sadakichi Hartmann
Carl Sadakichi Hartmann (November 8, 1867 – November 22, 1944) was an American art and photography critic, notable anarchist and poet of German and Japanese descent.
Biography
Hartmann, born on the artificial island of Dejima, Nagasaki, to ...
*
Joe Hill
*
Philip Lamantia
Philip Lamantia (October 23, 1927 – March 7, 2005) was an American poet and lecturer. His poems were often visionary, ecstatic, terror-filled, and erotic, exploring the subconscious world of dreams and linking it to daily experiences, while so ...
*
Philip Levine
*
John Henry Mackay
John Henry Mackay, also known by the pseudonym Sagitta, (6 February 1864 – 16 May 1933) was an egoist anarchist, thinker and writer. Born in Scotland and raised in Germany, Mackay was the author of '' Die Anarchisten'' (The Anarchists, 1891) an ...
** ''Anarchy''
*
John Manifold
John Streeter Manifold (21 April 1915 – 19 April 1985) was an Australian poet and critic. He was born in Melbourne, into a well known Camperdown family. He was educated at Geelong Grammar School, and read modern languages at Jesus College, C ...
** ''Makhno's Philosophers''
''Makhno’s Philosophers''
republished by in ''KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library #9''. John Manifold himself was a non-anarchist member of the Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...
.
* Renzo Novatore
Abele Rizieri Ferrari (May 12, 1890 – November 29, 1922), better known by the pen name Renzo Novatore, was an Italian individualist anarchist, illegalist and anti-fascist poet, philosopher and militant, now mostly known for his posthumously p ...
* Kenneth Patchen
Kenneth Patchen (December 13, 1911January 8, 1972) was an American poet and novelist. He experimented with different forms of writing and incorporated painting, drawing, and jazz music into his works, which have been compared with those of Will ...
* Benjamin Péret
Benjamin Péret (4 July 1899 – 18 September 1959) was a French poet, Parisian Dadaist and a founder and central member of the French Surrealist movement with his avid use of Surrealist automatism.
Biography
Benjamin Péret was born in Rezé, ...
* Diane di Prima
Diane di Prima (August 6, 1934October 25, 2020) was an American poet, known for her association with the Beat movement. She was also an artist, prose writer, and teacher. Her magnum opus is widely considered to be ''Loba'', a collection of poem ...
* Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read ...
* Kenneth Rexroth
Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth (1905–1982) was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider h ...
** ''Again at Waldheim''
* Lola Ridge
Lola Ridge (born Rose Emily Ridge; 12 December, 1873 Dublin, Ireland – 19 May, 1941 Brooklyn, New York) was an Irish-born New Zealand-American anarchist and modernist poet, and an influential editor of avant-garde, feminist, and Marxist publi ...
* Karl Shapiro
Karl Jay Shapiro (November 10, 1913 – May 14, 2000) was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1945 for his collection ''V-Letter and Other Poems''. He was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to th ...
** ''Death of Emma Goldman''
* Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate of ...
* Ernst Toller
Ernst Toller (1 December 1893 – 22 May 1939) was a German author, playwright, left-wing politician and revolutionary, known for his Expressionism (theatre), Expressionist plays. He served in 1919 for six days as President of the short-lived B ...
* George Woodcock
George Woodcock (; May 8, 1912 – January 28, 1995) was a Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, a philosopher, an essayist and literary critic. He was also a poet and published several volumes of travel wri ...
** ''Black Flag''
* Fernando Pessoa
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (; 13 June 1888 – 30 November 1935) was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher, and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and ...
** ''O Banqueiro Anarquista''
Television and films
* Peter Watkins
Peter Watkins (born 29 October 1935) is an English film and television director. He was born in Norbiton, Surrey, lived in Sweden, Canada and Lithuania for many years, and now lives in France. He is one of the pioneers of docudrama. His films ...
* Julian Beck
Julian Beck (May 31, 1925 – September 14, 1985) was an American actor, stage director, poet, and painter. He is best known for co-founding and directing The Living Theatre, as well as his role as Reverend Henry Kane, the malevolent preacher i ...
** Actor, director and painter who founded "The Living Theatre
The Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group in the United States. For most of its history it was led by its founders, actress Judith Malina and painter/po ...
" with Judith Malina.
* Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow (born Robert Kevin Brownlow; 2 June 1938) is a British film historian, television documentary-maker, filmmaker, author, and film editor. He is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era, having become inter ...
* Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés (; 22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish-Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico, and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians, and directors to be one of the greatest and m ...
** In particular, his documentary '' Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan''.
* Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote (born Robert Peter Cohon; October 10, 1941) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, author and narrator of films, theatre, television, and audiobooks. He worked on films such as '' E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' (1982), '' Cr ...
* Martin B. Duberman
Martin Bauml Duberman (born August 6, 1930) is an American historian, biographer, playwright, and gay rights activist. Duberman is Professor of History Emeritus at Herbert Lehman College in the Bronx, New York City.
Early life
Duberman was bo ...
** ''Mother Earth: An Epic Drama of Emma Goldman's Life''
* Jon Jost
Jon Stephen Jost (born 16 May 1943 in Chicago) is an American independent filmmaker.
Born in Chicago to a military family, he grew up in Georgia, Kansas, Japan, Italy, Germany and Virginia. He began making films in January 1963 after being expel ...
* Nelly Kaplan
Nelly Kaplan (11 April 1931 – 12 November 2020) was an Argentina, Argentine-born French writer and film director who focused on the arts, film, and filmmakers. She studied economics at the University of Buenos Aires. Passionate about cinema, ...
* Adonis Kyrou
* Judith Malina
Judith Malina (June 4, 1926 – April 10, 2015) was a German-born American actress, director and writer. With her husband, Julian Beck, Malina co-founded The Living Theatre, a radical political theatre troupe that rose to prominence in New York C ...
** Actress who was an integral part of the "Living Theater" with her husband
* Godfrey Reggio
Godfrey Reggio (born March 29, 1940) is an American director of experimental documentary films.
Life
Reggio was born in New Orleans, Louisiana to an old and distinguished Louisiana family descended from Francesco M. de Reggio, an Italian noblem ...
* Jean Vigo
Jean Vigo (; 26 April 1905 – 5 October 1934) was a French film director who helped establish poetic realism in film in the 1930s. His work influenced French New Wave cinema of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Biography
Vigo was born to Emil ...
* Yoshishige Yoshida
, also known as Kijū Yoshida, was a Japanese film director and screenwriter.
Life and career
Graduating from the University of Tokyo, where he studied French literature, Yoshida entered the Shōchiku studio in 1955 and worked as an assistant t ...
** Directed '' Eros Plus Massacre'', about anarchists Sakae Ōsugi Sakae may refer to:
Places in Japan
* Sakae, Chiba (Japanese: 栄町; ''sakae-machi''), a town in Chiba Prefecture
* Sakae, Niigata (Japanese: 栄町; ''sakae-machi''), a town in Niigata Prefecture
* Sakae, Nagano (Japanese: 栄村; ''sakae-mura'') ...
and Noe Itō.
* Yu Yong-Sik
** Directed ''Anarchists
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessari ...
'', about an underground cell of insurrectionary anarchists.
Theatre/drama
* Carol Bolt
Carol Bolt (August 25, 1941 – November 28, 2000) was a Canadian playwright. She was a founding member and, for several years, president of the Playwrights Union of Canada.
Career
Bolt's play ''Buffalo Jump'', an examination of Canada during ...
** ''Red Emma: Queen of the Anarchists'' (1974)
* Martin B. Duberman
Martin Bauml Duberman (born August 6, 1930) is an American historian, biographer, playwright, and gay rights activist. Duberman is Professor of History Emeritus at Herbert Lehman College in the Bronx, New York City.
Early life
Duberman was bo ...
** ''Mother Earth: An Epic Drama of Emma Goldman's Life'' (1991)
* Fredy Perlman
Fredy Perlman (20 August 1934 – 26 July 1985) was an American author, publisher, and activist. His best-known work, ''Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!'', retells the historical rise of state domination through the Hobbesian metaphor of ...
** ''Illyria Street Commune''
* Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard (born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and politi ...
** '' The Coast of Utopia (A Trilogy)'' (2002)
* Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist thinker and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political scien ...
** ''Emma: A Play in Two Acts about Emma Goldman, American Anarchist'' (2002)
See also
* Anarchist symbolism
Anarchists have employed certain symbols for their cause, including most prominently the circle-A and the black flag. Anarchist cultural symbols have been prevalent in popular culture since around the turn of the 21st century, concurrent with t ...
* Anti-art
Anti-art is a loosely used term applied to an array of concepts and attitudes that reject prior definitions of art and question art in general. Somewhat paradoxically, anti-art tends to conduct this questioning and rejection from the vantage poi ...
* Artivist
* List of fictional anarchists
This is a list of fictional anarchists, including the source material in which they are found, their creators, the individuals who interpreted them as anarchists during development (if not originally created as such), and short descriptions of ...
Footnotes and citations
Further reading
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*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
Anarchism, Art, & Critical Mass
a bibliography of works of science fiction which feature or were inspired by a theme of anarchism.
When Gendarme Sleeps – Anarchist Zine of Poetry
Libertarian Communist Library Arts and Culture Archive
Notes on the history of anarchism in literature: a chronology
Parser: New Poetry and Poetics
a journal of anarchist poetry and poetics
People's history of Culture
a working class and anarchist cultural history page
Anarchism and Film
a database of anarchist films created by Santiago Juan-Navarro and hosted by ChristieBooks
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anarchism And The Arts
1857 introductions
Anarchist culture
Anarchist works
Issues in anarchism
Political art