Art and class are inseparable concepts. In all earlier class-societies each class has had its art. Art was not universal, but always class art. All art has a political function. In the bourgeois society culture is industrialised and oppression systemised. Therefore there is largely only talk of one art: the bourgeois, which expresses bourgeois ideals.
This relationship is a result of the ruling classes’ culture politics, which deprives the oppressed of their own culture. In place of genuine, popular art one is providing the people with false experiences. As a part of the exploitation one is robbing the lower classes of its own artists and allows them to carry out the upper classes’ art.
Mao says, “An army without culture is a listless army.” Class art is part of the necessary prerequisites for an active class struggle.
The bourgeois artist and his work is part of the oppression. His dependence on capital has made him into the bourgeoisie’s court fool. We sign ourselves
45Note the reuse of Trier’s image from the first exhibition poster. Many images were reproduced in different
posters with different contexts. It is not entirely clear why this is, but most likely it was easier for the public to recognise their posters and it saved RM extra work, as it would have been almost impossible for anyone to produce as many posters as RM did without reusing images.
up for the other side. We want to participate in the creation of THE FREE PROLETARIAN ART.
Our society’s art is created for the ruling, and the oppressed do not understand it because it is not their art. The art, which the proletarian does not understand, is therefore contra-revolutionary.
The characteristic of proletarian art is that it can be understood and utilized by the oppressed classes. Proletarian art is popular by form and content. It is a weapon in the class struggle.
Long live that art that lives in the people!47
Thus begins the first of six A5-formatted annual catalogues produced by RM over five years (1970-1975), dated 21 June 1970, stating their unmistakably political aims which were illustrated by reproductions of their work. Marxist-Leninist views were frankly established here by the group as a cornerstone of collective practice. The RM annual publications were inexpensive to produce with their monochrome cardboard backs (Fig. 2.15-2.16) and small number of pages, nevertheless their uncomplicated black and white design efficiently highlighted the group’s ideological viewpoints to its readers.48
For the most part the catalogues were produced for the group’s own use, as a keepsake of important productions and events. Nonetheless, after a couple of years they found that they had made a contribution to other smaller avant-garde groupings, such as student circles and choirs, who used the booklets, to a certain degree, as ‘recipe books’ for how to run a collective. “For that reason” Kruse states, “we made an effort to write as straightforwardly and as downrightly – as practically minded – as possible.”49The catalogues encapsulate RM’s experience with collective production and political art, while illustrating their work and progress with full page illustrations. Short articles explained the group’s stance on a variety of subjects, which mainly took shape as political comments on popular culture and the interrelationship between art and politics. In the first issue some very important and topical images appeared, including the linocut by Trier Mørch on the inside cover, depicting a heroic worker in profile, with his fist clenched, standing in front of a banner stating: ‘Long live art that lives in the people’ (Fig. 2.17).50 Trier Mørch’s worker clearly relates to Majakovskij’s red worker type, in a cap and blouse, and is depicted flat against the background. This image also introduces the 2004 biography on Røde Mor, thereby underlining the importance of this image’s statement to the group: for the group’s duration, they worked continuously towards this concept.
47Røde Mor, no. 1, Holbæk Ekprestrykkeri: Holbæk, 1970, p2
48The first has a vibrant red back especially significant to their political agenda; others were made in different
colours such as green and blue.
49Kruse, November 2005
A page consisting of citations on art and society, which recurred in later issues, follows the manifesto reproduced above. First, Arne Bruun Rasmussen, a famous Copenhagen auctioneer, commented on the state of popular taste after the war. In an excerpt taken from an interview in the Danish newspaper Politiken, Rasmussen stated that the art-buying public did not want anything but peace in their pictures, calm scenes particularly landscapes, because of the traumas experienced during the world war. This obviously contradicts what RM wanted to achieve and is countered on their behalf by Ernst Fischer on the issue of art’s important relationship with society. He suggests that art can only be truthful when it displays the decay and change within a society. Hence art and artists contribute to the changing forces of society. In Fischer’s words, Socialist art is superior to its bourgeois counterpart in that it inhabits “…a world historical vision of the future.”51Lastly, Mao Tse Tung is quoted: “An art for art’s sake, an art, which positions itself above the classes, an art, which develops beyond politics and is independent of it, does not exist in reality”.52 Mao’s statement epitomised the group’s goals and was an important part of the background from which their ideological beliefs developed. During 1970-71, RM was deeply fascinated by the Chinese Cultural Revolution because of its stance against bureaucratic Socialism, characterised mainly by the Soviet Union and its failings. The People’s Republic’s special emphasis on culture and art as political priorities on an equal footing with industry and material issues was a model that the artists wanted to implement in Denmark. RM agreed with Mao that “proletarian literature and art [was] part of the proletariat’s and the revolution’s cause, or as Lenin said, ‘a small wheel and a small screw in the revolution’s machinery.’”53 In later years most of RM would realise the shortcomings of Chinese policies, above all, towards artists, writers and intellectuals.
A well-known image from the first catalogue, which was repeatedly used in various forms, wasOnkel HO og USA på månen(Uncle HO and USA on the Moon, 1969, Fig. 2.18) also referred to as Den dag amerikanerne landede på månen(The day the Americans landed on the Moon) by Yukari Ochiai. Here, the North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh occupies the larger upper part of the image, portrayed as a wise man gazing down upon Neil Armstrong, who has just planted the American flag on the moon, thereby claiming it for the United States of America. Flowing lines give the impression of a mountain or a river, which divides the two subjects. These turn into foliage further from Ho Chi Minh, and seemingly grow towards the astronaut. The picture reflects on the fact that while the Americans won the
51Røde Mor, 1970, p2, Ernst Fischer quote, translated from Danish by A.G. 52Ibid., Chairman Mao Tse Tung quote, translated from Danish by A.G. 53Ibid.
race to the moon, the Vietnamese were winning at home and beating the economically and technologically more advanced Americans. A critique of the race to outer space as well as the worldwide struggle against Communism through capitalist-invoked wars – justified by the domino-effect theory – was exposed as American Imperialism. Compared to other images by group members where the Americans are generally caricatured, here the irony of the current situation was clear enough for Ochiai to state her sympathies. There is no need for her to use ridicule, as the world’s status quo proves her point. On the same day the Americans landed on the moon (21 July 1969) RM painted an approximately 150m² mural on a gable wall in Holbæk commenting on their view of an absurd global situation in which the superpowers and richest states spent billions on space programs while poorer nations were starving.Onkel HO og USA på månen is a good example of the area in which RM created its images, somewhere between reality and fantasy, where political comment is made through highly skilful aesthetic representations.
Part of the celebration of popular diversity was the incorporation of music and theatrical performances into RM. Even at the first exhibition the group had jazz musicians playing inside the gallery space. In essence they wanted to incorporate all areas of culture, particularly working class culture, into their group. Therefore in the autumn of 1970 Røde Mor Agit Prop (RM-AP) was born, playing on the words AGITation and PROPaganda, wherein all of RM contributed through either music, dance, slides or posters. In RM’s second catalogue RM-AP was explained:
When we discovered that the traditional exhibition form was too stagnant, we began to include new activities into the showroom. […] We use the combination of music and slides to create a common experience that emphasises the political content. […] AGIT PROP becomes an interaction between audience and RED MOTHER. […] In bourgeois art the audience is passive.54
Thus the combination of music, theatre and art was important in order to renew a more popular interest in art as well as in the proletarian cause. The termagitprop derives from the Russian cultural policy initiated by Anatoli Lunacharski, the first USSR Commissar of Education and Art.55 Lunacharski’s essay from 1903, Foundations of a Positive Aesthetic, is hailed by Matthew Cullerne Bown as “the single most important and prophetic essay in the pre-history of socialist realist painting.”56 Post-revolution, many avant-garde artists, such as
54Røde Mor, 1971, p6
55Ward, Alex,Power to the People, Lund Humphries: Jerusalem, 2007, p19
56Bown, Matthew Cullerne,Socialist Realist Painting, Yale University Press: New Haven; London, 1998, p29-
Majakovskij and the Constructivists, contributed to agitprop activities, mostly with poster designs. However, agitprop art and design ranged from theatrical performances and ‘agit- boats’, ‘agit-trains’ and ‘agit-cars’ to sweet wrappers.57 Furthermore, Majakovskij, with Meyerhold and Malevich, organised a mass spectacle, a theatre performance calledMystery- Bouffe, to celebrate the anniversary of the revolution, which eventually made a tour of factories.58These methods of bringing the art to the people were similar to RM-AP themes.
RM-AP was found everywhere, from Copenhagen to the countryside, at demonstrations against the Vietnam War and against the EEC. RM became a common sight at all types of rallies, particularly those organised by the left. The shift towards performance occurred because they saw gallery exhibitions as dull and conservative, and not reaching the grassroots audience with whom they so passionately wanted to connect. In December 1970 RM-AP’s first LP came out, Johnny gennem ild og vand (Johnny through Fire and Water), written mostly by Trier. It is a highly topical musical story about an American soldier in Vietnam, who returns home as a ghost. The LP had other relevant songs, such as The bird over Rio Grande, about Che Guevara’s death, and the historicising Rosa Dancing, which reflects upon Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht’s last dance before they were captured, tortured and killed by the German militia, Freikorps. The LP ends with Eugene Pottier’s Socialist march, Internationale, sung by the whole collective. One is compelled to reflect on the conscious parallels drawn here between the 1871 Paris Commune and 1971 RM. Though the LP was only obtainable in alternative bookshops and book cafés, it sold over 80.000 copies, which proved the group’s vast appeal to the ‘masses’. Trier Mørch designed the LP’s sleeve with the characteristic red RM logo on the front. The FNL flag, which is red and blue with a yellow star in the middle, adorns the back and represents an obvious association with Vietnambevægelsen as well as with the LP’s theme.
During 1971, the group changed the format of their working process and stopped exhibiting individually signed works. As a result, many artists stopped signing their works, and a collective workshop was set up. RM aimed to produce fully collective posters where selections of images by various artists were combined to make one poster. Although they had been doing this all along, works by individuals were, for a time, extremely rare. The main reason for taking such a step was to create distance between RM’s collective work process and person-specific bourgeois art. The individual was less important than the group and since
57 Utopies et réalités en URSS 1917-1934: agit-prop, design architecture, exhibition catalogue, Centre de
creation Industrielle, Paris, 1980, p15
the workshop consisted of both professionals and amateurs who collaborated equally on the development and production of the posters, there should be nothing separating the two. In September 1971, RM stated: “Røde Mor has chosen to make collective images. By collective images we not only mean things that everyone in Røde Mor has contributed to, but also individual works that arise through shared discussion and criticism. Røde Mor will no longer sign or number its graphics.”59 RM now started to receive serious commissions from social movements and organisations to produce overtly political posters on specific subjects, such as Feminist Liberation or protests against the Vietnam War. RM had created posters supporting these causes since 1969, but primarily in accidental ways.Hanoi-aktionen(The Hanoi Action, 1969, Fig. 2.19) for example was made for Studenterrådene (The Student Councils). The poster consists of images that commented on the ongoing Vietnam War and continues to point up the paradox between space travel and fighting an Imperialistic war. At the bottom Trier Mørch’s iconic female guerrilla fighter, which she reworked many times (Fig. 2.20- 2.21), appears. Hanoi-aktionen also has two caricatures of American President Richard Nixon, a favourite figure of fun for Trier and Kruse.
The graphics group discussed ideas and motifs together, which were further developed within the whole community. Artists then went their separate ways to carve and later returned with linoleum-plates and prints, seeking approval from the collective group. Early on, the group decided communally on the linocut as the medium which they wanted to use extensively, because it was cheap, soft to cut and easy to print from. It was also simple to reproduce in a variety of printed forms.60 Furthermore, they believed that the rough character of the prints demonstrated protest and revolt. Additionally the black and white contrast was easily reproduced without loss of grey-scale; on occasion a colour replaced either black or white. The only set criterion for individually made images was their narrative essence and an effective display of political subject matter. After many collocations, test prints and discussions, which would often take months, the finished result reflected RM collectively rather than the individual artist. The amateur hereby had an important role in production through his or her criticism, which Kruse saw as one of the most beneficial attributes of the collective.
Debatteatret (The Debate Theatre) commissioned the illustration of a collection of Socialist songs popularly named The Little Red Songbook, which was published on 1 May
59Røde Mor, 1971, p14
60 On occasion RM would use offset, silkscreen and photomontage; however the expression produced by the
linocut was always present. The linocuts would often be the initial technique and then prints would be sent to the commissioning organisations to be reproduced through another printing method.
1971, after Mao Tse Tung’s Little Red Book.61 This in turn led to the publishing of Red Mother Illustrated Songbook later that year, which included an LP and linocuts, in conjunction with the lyrics, illustrating contemporaneous political subjects including police violence against demonstrators and Vietnamese freedom fighters. The LP was by the newly formed Røde Mor Rok Ork,62 which signified the establishment of RM’s music group as a semi-professional rock-band. In the same way that youth rebellion balked at authority and hierarchy, the rock orchestra demonstrated a musical collective and non-soloist expression in the face of such powers. “The end of the 1960s saw the emergence of political rock bands that explicitly sought to change society, and fast and aggressive rock music emerged as both the expression of an outspoken lifestyle and an ideal medium for the transmission of revolutionary messages.”63 Detlef Siegfried has pointed out the transnational nature of electrically amplified music to signify, essentially, left-wing sympathies, which “represented cosmopolitanism, a do-it-yourself activity, and shared participation.”64
The first Danish rock groups were formed around 1967-8 and had literary names, such as Steppeulvene (The Steppe Wolves), Burnin Red Ivanhoe and Ache; ethnic associations with Buki Yamaz, Nana Banana and Salsa Na Ma; or jazz rock, fusion and funk in the shape of Pakhus 1 (Warehouse 1), Caracas, Secret Oyster and Cox Orange. Through exotic names and the use of an international genre, rock music became the expression of the international youth movement on Danish soil.65The overtly Socialist bands, Jomfru Ane Band (Virgin Ane Band), Slumstormernes Orkester (The Slum Storm Troopers’ Orchestra), Røde Vilfred (Red Vilfred), Røde Lue (The Red Cap) and not least Røde Mor Agit Prop, appeared in the early 1970s. These rock bands were often the element that drew people of different classes together at demonstrations, festivals and other events staged during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In
61Debatteatret (1970-74) was one of many political theatre groups founded during the late 1960s, which were
defined as street and action theatre groups. Its performances were staged in the workplace and were made for and by workers. The plays were presented in a social realistic vein and were inspired by Bertolt Brecht’s
verfremdungs techniques, Piscator’s epics, German/Russian 1920s agit-prop theatre, Dario Fo’s comedie dell’arte and August Boal’s open forum theatre – particularly the latter where the audience is drawn in to participate.
62Rok Ork is a foreshortening of Rock Orchestra.
63Siegfried, Detlef, ‘Music and Protest in 1960s Europe’, ed. Klimke, Martin & Scharloth, Joachim, ‘1968 in
Europe - An Introduction’,1968 in Europe – A History of Protest and Activism, 1956-1977, Palgrave Macmillan: New York, 2008, p57
64Ibid.
65Harsløf, Olav, ‘Røde Mor 1969-1978’, www.roedemor.dk (All of the bands mentioned are Danish, and were
addition, Siegfried claims that “music contributed substantially to the participants imagining