Hearing Bertolt Brecht
In the 1930s Brecht was involved, together with Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, in a highly influential discussion around issues pertaining to art’s political efficacy within an increasingly oppressive Capitalist culture. Brecht’s didactic theatrical practice was contrasted with Benjamin’s support for new technologies of artistic reproduction, and with Adorno’s championing of abstract art. By including in the gallery actual and reproduced abstract paintings, index cards, and wall-mounted texts Peter Suchin directly alludes to this seminal and arguably still pertinent debate.
Derek Hampson 