Segal’s book has seven largely independent essays exploring the role of art in politics, starting with Europe in the First World War, then covering Diego Rivera in Mexico, the Third Reich, the Cold War, the People’s Republic of China, the work of Kara Walker, and monuments in the former Soviet Bloc. It’s a short work, with 137 pages of text and 26 of notes and bibliography. Segal is largely enthusiastic about the political use of art and he rejects the common assumption that political art is not pure art. But his work is much more historical than philosophical, so he spends little space worrying how we might make a distinction between political and pure art. It’s a useful summary of some central cases from the last 100 years, with a fair number of both black and white and color illustrations. The writing is clear and easy to comprehend: Segal does not rely on obscure terminology. There’s an obvious gap in the lack of discussion of feminist art; there is not even an entry for feminism in the index. The coverage of individual artists is pretty swift in most cases, except for Diego Rivera and Kara Walker.

So Art and Politics serves as a good introduction to the topic, providing a helpful first take on the history. Segal shows convincingly that political art is a vibrant part of the recent history of art, and that a social/historical approach is essential to understanding that work. Critic Clement Greenberg’s assertion the future of art would be dominated by abstract formalism has been shown to be completely wrong-headed. It’s clear that the urge to separate out “real,” “pure,” “fine,” or other categories of ideal art from applied, popular, political or mass arts has not resulted in many useful distinctions.  While we might maintain some idea that art, like science, is in principle not beholden to contemporary political debates, it turns out that actual history allows little room for such theoretical ideas. Readers of Segal’s book can follow up by researching the artists and art works that he discusses. For a more thorough discussion of movements since the Second World War, readers might turn to Art and Politics: A Small History of Art for Social Change Since 1945 by Claudia Mesch.

© 2017 Christian Perring

Christian Perring lives and teaches in New York.