What is Regionalism?

An introduction to the Modern Day 'Kulturkampf'

It's been some time since my last update here. Every now and again Substack kindly reminds me that it would be better to post more regularly; but life sometimes sweeps us away, and this isn't Instagram after all. It has been a little frustrating though, not having the time to post anything recently (as there’s so much to comment on at the moment), but I live in two very different worlds. While one foot is planted firmly in the realm of economics and finance (as you'll have gathered from all of my previous posts) the other remains just as firmly set in the world of art and culture.

There is no shortage of 'New Normal' economic and political chicanery to talk about in this (currently) profane world, but my art sometimes demands more of my time; and occasionally we must all do something to nourish our souls. Moving forward, I would like to post more on this subject, and I will prepare a rather more in-depth update on our latest events and projects soon.

As a Regionalist, Art and Life are not seen as separate things (though time for both is occasionally hard to find). Regionalists have always embraced a larger role, and engaged with the world on other fronts.

‘[Art] is not about pretty pictures or pious sentiments. [The artists] John Ruskin and Thomas Cole understood that artists are singularly equipped to bear witness to the "fiery" unseen order upon which our civilization rests. [While] George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers were as concerned with setting the tastes of the nation as they were with setting its laws.’

— Knights of the Brush: The Hudson River School and the Moral Landscape.

Seeing this 'unseen order' is the artist's raison d'être - an idea that is explored in depth by Marshall McLuhan, in his classic (yet largely misunderstood) work, The Medium is the Massage. Most of what you read about here, after all, very much belongs to that category; the 'invisible environment,' as McLuhan described the realm of the 'unseen.'

I would also like to highlight the importance of art and culture to the rulers of our society, the good and the bad; these people understand (as Washington and Jefferson did) that art and culture shapes society's thinking; not just what people think about, but how they think. For this reason, the ‘elites’ have long sought to control the arts, ‘with an iron grip,’ as Chris Hedges writes in his Death of the Liberal Class.

The elites slipped for a while, however, before the Great War and leading up to the Second World War. This is part of reason, I would suggest, that we enjoyed a kind of Golden Age from after WWII, until around the time of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), 2007 – 2008. Not long after WWII however (in 1952 to be precise) the U.S. government's ‘Psychological Strategy Board’ introduced its (now declassified) ‘Doctrinal Program’ (PSB D-33/2), and this was where the elite’s grip began to tighten once again.

Of course, I must return to this subject later; what I would like to share now though, is the story of that awakening – the point at which the elites were told they had dropped the ball, and began making plans to take back control.

As independent, Regionalist artists, we live and work outside of the official systems of cultural control. For anyone outside of the art world, it seems preposterous that such control would, or could, exist. So I set out, back in 2016, to write a series of essays to explain this history – a collections of 20 works I called Kulturkampf (culture struggle) – and another series to explain what Regionalism (the oldest and most influential art movement in the world, that almost no one has ever heard of) is all about.

Regionalism is ‘ambiguous’ and many faceted, so I divided the subject – under the heading, ‘What is Regionalism?’ – as follows. Regionalism is:

Low-tech - Skill-based - Grassroots - Independent - Democratic - Representational - Community oriented - Politically outspoken - Engaged and activist. . .

Let me leave things here for now though (before my intro becomes longer than the piece I wanted to share). I am certain you will understand the relevance of this material today, as so much of what was predicted has now arrived.

I thank you for your continuing interest, and I look forward to sharing more.

For now though:

‘All artists wish to be independent – or wish to be seen as independent – and all artists profess to be independent; but what does independence mean?

The Impressionists called themselves 'independents;' and few would argue with this given their history of rejection by the salon and their subsequent charting of a new path, beginning with their 1863 Salon des Refusés ('Exhibition of the Refused'). 'Great artists... live in permanent conflict with their administrations', writes Theodor Adorno, in The Culture Industry. This idea is expressed in numerous works of social theory: One-Dimensional Man, The Impact Of Science On Society, Postmodernism and Consumer Society, etc. All artists who do not specifically insist on independence will be absorbed, or controlled by, the system. Plato's Republic, books III and X explained (for anyone interested in governing a republic, or any other kind of society for that matter) the artists are a disruptive, if not dangerous, subversive force; and should, therefore, be censored and/or regulated.

Open censorship is not acceptable today, of course [at least it wasn't at the time this article was written] though this does happen in more subtle ways. Artists who have not been through the official channels, the 'unschooled' (or those who adhere to more traditional modes), are generally not considered by major public institutions.

Truly independent artists are generally the best artists, if for no other reason than they have managed to continue their work, and distinguish themselves (or earn a living at least), despite a system set in place to specifically marginalize them (and their ideas), and to prevent their work from being seen by a wider audience. Censorship, in its various forms, is often an ineffective way of keeping independent art from the public, because the public is frequently more savvy than the ruling elite believe; people often know, instinctively, when they're being sold a bill of goods – despite theories to the contrary.

From the Dialectic of Enlightenment:

‘The rate at which they [the consumers of culture industry product] are reduced to stupidity must not fall behind the rate at which their intelligence [cultural savvy] is increasing.’

A far more effective restraint is now taking effect, however, which was predicted many years ago; that is, the need for artists to earn a living. No matter how much a society appreciates a fine painting or sculpture (well-crafted art work in any form) if the people themselves are struggling financially, they cannot support their artists.

'[A]s private fortunes dwindle, artists become increasingly dependent upon the patronage of public bodies', writes Bertrand Russell, in The Impact Of Science On Society. The private fortunes dwindling now, of course, are those of the middle-class. 'In Russia they [the artists] are already mere licensed sycophants,' he continues, echoing Plato's advice to the ruling elite. He [Russell] goes on to say:

‘before long, with conscription of labor, no one will be allowed to practice literature or painting unless he can get twelve magistrates or ministers of religion to testify to his competence.’

In his famous 1939 essay, 'Avant Garde And Kitsch,' the world's most acclaimed art critic, Clement Greenberg, famously stated that art 'actually belongs' to 'an elite among the ruling class,' going on to explain that this group had 'abandoned' its role in the 'development' of culture for the 'masses'. His suggestion therefore, implicit in this work, is that the 'ruling class' should once again take back its art. This happened in the early fifties, as the untold history of modern art reveals.

Robert Hughes explains, in The Shock Of The New, how the ruling elite lost control of art in the first place (in one area of the world), in the period leading up to the Russian Revolution. The relationship of the ruling-class and the middle-class to the artists, is made clear in this work; and indirectly, the difference between the independent artists and artists in the pay of the ruling elite. Ultimately, whoever has money has power, and ideas that support the dominant system will be transmitted through art. Wealth may be highly concentrated in a small ruling class – the church, a Monarch, or a corporate / financial elite – or, more equitably distributed over a wide swath of the population, as when the middle-class grew to the point of being the largest demographic, in the 60s and 70s. (More on this in the next section 'democratic').

Please continue reading on my old website

I look forward to sharing more in the very near future, and again, thank you for your interest.

David