The art of George Grosz (1893-1959) provides bitterly satirical and haunting grotesque caricatures of the world in which he lived. Emerging out of the First World War, Grosz’s drawings display absolute disdain for capitalists, military officials and politicians alike. A leading figure in movements such as German Expressionism, Dadaism and New Objectivity, George Grosz was a controversial figure who was denounced by the Nazis as ‘Cultural Bolshevik no.1’. A member of the German Communist Party from 1919, George Grosz was nonetheless a controversial figure in the party itself. His biting satire seemed unable to fit in any institution or organization. Following the rise to power of the Nazi party in 1933, George Grosz emigrated to New York where he became an anti-Stalinist, while his art confrontationally responded to New York’s consensus around Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. In many ways, the art and life of George Grosz displays a unique and challenging engagement with the social upheavals that surrounded him.
In this session we are joined by Barbara McCloskey. She is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Her books include George Grosz and the Communist Party: Art and Radicalism in Crisis, 1918 to 1936 (1997), Artist of World War II (2005), and The Exile of George Grosz: Modernism, America, and the One World Order (2015). In this session she will be joining us to discuss  her work on George Grosz, his provocative art and the context in which he lived.

Podcast 24: The Art And Life Of George Grosz (audio only)

In this Podcast, we were joined by lifelong revolutionary activist and writer, Ian Scott Horst to discuss his recent book, Like Ho Chi Minh! Like Che Guevara! The Revolutionary Left in Ethiopia (1969-1979). This book tells the story of the 1974 popular revolution of Ethiopia, exploring how events such as the American Civil Rights movement, the fight against imperialism in the Vietnam war, and figures such as Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara, V. I. Lenin and Mao Zedong inspired Ethiopian revolutionaries. 

This was recorded as part of the Exploding Appendix Avant-garde Art Practice and Research Group, who meet fortnightly to explore art , culture and ideas. The sessions take place on Zoom (and sometimes in person too). The events are free and open. If you are interested in being involved in future events message me explodingappendix [at] gmail.com or check out our website at http://www.explodingappendix.com/exploding-appendix-avant-garde-art-reseach-collective-related-events/

Podcast 29: Like Ho Chi Minh! Like Che Guevara!  Revolutionary Left in Ethiopia w/ Ian Scott Horst

The Bauhaus was a renowned art, architecture and design school that pioneered elegant and functional design for the masses. The Bauhaus is now famous for producing objects that were elegant without ornamentation. These elements of the Bauhaus movement, as Elizabeth Otto notes, have come to be viewed as “the paradigmatic movement of rational modernism.” (p.3) Yet Otto’s book Haunted Bauhaus: Occult Spirituality, Gender Fluidity, Queer Identities, and Radical Politics challenges the view that the Bauhaus movement was simply a project of rational and utilitarian efficiency. Instead she proposes “that Bauhaus―through anti-utilitarian experiments in occultism and spirituality, communal and individual expressions of unorthodox conceptions of gender and sexuality, and radical politics―was equally engaged with a specific range of ideas that controvert this paradigm of rationality, and that these ideas were central to its project and have been systematically overlooked or relegated to the margins.” (p.3) Otto’s book takes us on a journey around a Bauhaus, whose haus is haunted. On this journey we are visited by the Geists of German idealism; the repressed and uncanny of psychoanalysis; double-exposed “spirit photographs”; nude gymnastics and breathing exercises; the masculinities of the artist-engineer and its dark side; the many women involved in the school and femininities in transformation; experimentations in sexuality and gender fluidity; and conflicts between communist and nationalist students.

Elizabeth Otto is an art historian and author of Tempo, Tempo! The Bauhaus Photomontages of Maianne Brendt, the co-author Bauhaus Women: A Global Perspective and the co-editor of five books including Bauhaus Bodies: Gender, Sexuality, and Body Culture in Modernism’s Legendary Art School. This podcast was recorded as part of the Exploding Appendix Avant-garde Art Practice and Research Group which runs regular free online art salons.

To watch with visuals visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH-CEPqpebc

For more on the sessions visit http://www.explodingappendix.com/exploding-appendix-avant-garde-art-reseach-collective-related-events/ or email us at explodingappendix [at] gmail.com

Podcast 30: Haunted Bauhaus w/ Elizabeth Otto

Have you ever tried to really think about what people say in the streets?  
To take their words seriously and dig for the stories hidden behind them?  
Today, I decided to do just that—  
to dive deep into their lives, their tales, and everything they carry within.

THE WORDS OF THE STREETS

What is it like to lose life? 
How do you run to survive? 
What is survival anyway?

Leave Your Life and Run...

White Rabbit

H EAR T

In this Exploding Appendix Podcast Bradley Tuck is joined by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, who is a profound and fascinating  artist, writer and activist. She is the editor of many of our favourite anthologies such as Tricks and Treats: Sex Worker Talk About Their Clients, Dangerous Families: Queer Writings on Surviving,  That's Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity, and Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification and the Desire to Conform. She is the author of novels such as So Many Ways To Sleep Badly and Pulling Taffy, and her memoir The End of San Fransisco. Her most recent novel, Sketchtasy is out with Arsenal Pump Press. In this podcast we discuss the importance of exploring challenging ideas in the process of creating an oppositional culture, her new novel Sketchtasy, Her involvement in ACT UP, the importance of a queer politics that fights for universal access to need and services, and the limitations of LGBT activism that focuses on consumer empowerment, gay marriage, gays in the military, more diverse CEOs and tougher hate crime laws. In this podcast you will hear David Wojnarowicz  reading Memories That Smell Like Gasoline and a clip from Jim Hubbard's  United In Anger: A History of ACT UP.

Podcast 14: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore on Sketchtasy, Queer Radicalism & the Limits of Inclusion

James Butler and Aaron Bastani look back over the summer's political drama, and discuss the ideological transformation of the Tory Party, the constitutional crisis and the forthcoming Labour Party conference. http://novaramedia.com/?p=14780

Novara Media Podcast

#NovaraFM: What the Hell Happened? What's Next?

"We affirm that the beauty of the world has been enriched by a new form of beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car with a hood that glistens with large pipes resembling a serpent with explosive breath … a roaring automobile that seems to ride on grapeshot that is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace."
F. T. Marinetti, The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism

From as early as Marinetti’s Manifesto from 1909, the avant-garde has been drawn to speed and acceleration, and in the case of Italian Futurism, willing to tear down anything that stands in its way. In this session, Bradley Tuck will interview Benjamin Noys about his 2013 book Malign Velocities, which charts the darker history of the avant-garde, focusing on its embrace of the cult of speed, technology and capitalism. Tracing the story through Italian futurism, communist accelerationism following the Russian Revolution, fantasies of integration with the machine, the cyberpunk phuturism of the ‘90s and ‘00s, the apocalyptic accelerationism of the post-2008 moment of crisis, and the negative form of terminal accelerationism. Drawing upon a miasma of references, Benjamin Noys critically challenges this tradition, calling instead for a new politics that challenges the supposed pleasures of speed without simply countering acceleration with the desire to slow down.

Benjamin Noys is Professor of Critical Theory at the University of Chichester and author of books such as The Persistence of the Negative (2010) and Malign Velocities: Accelerationism and Capitalism (2013).

Podcast 15: Malign Velocities: Accelerationism and Capitalism: A Live Interview with Benjamin Noys

In this Episode, recorded on the 19th May 2020, Oli Spleen (Pink Narcissus, Spleen, and solo work Gaslight illuminations) and Nick Hudson (The Academy of Sun) join the Exploding Appendix Avant-garde Art Practice and Research Group to discuss their recent collaboration 'Night Sweats & Fever Dreams' (2020), an album that deals with Oli’s diagnosis with HIV in 1999 and hospitalisation with AIDS defining complications in the summer of 2000. Returning to these experiences twenty years later, Oli Spleen has collaborated with Nick Hudson to produce “a fevered, hallucinogenic mirror to the desperate times when the threat of death at the hands of AIDS was a terrifying reality for many gay men.”
In this session we will discuss the album, the themes and experiences raised in it and its relationship to both Oli Spleen and Nick Hudson’s other projects, as well as playing some excerpts from the album.

Podcast 16: Night Sweats & Fever Dreams: A Live Discussion with Oli Spleen and Nick Hudson

Art & Research Group led by Bradley Tuck dedicated to exploring the history and future of avant-garde and radical counterculture.
📍Brighton, UK & Online

Podcast 24: The Art And Life Of George Grosz (audio only)

Exploding Appendix

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