David Walsh Lecture

Lecturer, David Walsh, is an American Film Critic and a writer for the World Socialist Web Site. A lecture made possible by the International Students for Social Equality, took place on the night of Monday, April 13 in the student commons. David Walsh’s lecture was introduced as one about the negative effect that our nations current economic and social crisis is having on contemporary artwork. The World Socialist Web Site is built upon the Fourth International that was originally founded in 1938 by Leon Trotsky. Walsh clearly stated his strong socialist beliefs by saying on numerous occasions throughout the lecture that our country needs to take more recognition of the great problems that are occurring and have been progressively getting worse the past three decades. Walsh opened up his lecture by stating that the last 5 Presidencies or what he called “regimes” were great attempts of failure and in those attempts only awarded the national government more and more power. He spoke for a few moments about issues he had with the current political situation and how our country placing Obama
in office has only proven to be a disaster. Saying, “Obama’s regime is placing such great attention on Afghanistan and in turn bring more catastrophe to that country while Iraq is in great need of assistance. At this point I was unclear how Walsh, a film critic, was going to integrate the subject of contemporary art with politics and the unstable condition of our country as well as the rest of the world. However, not much later into his discussion he made quite a bold statement about where he stands with the accessibility and worthiness of contemporary artwork. Walsh stated that contemporary artists are not aware or prepared of this great transformation our world is going through and because of their naiveté the production of successful good quality art work has hit a brick wall and become stale. He also said that because of the deep social dysfunction, we are in serious need of a universal change in critique of work. He said that as of right now the work that is being produced is not being felt or seen. Walsh explained that because artists are neglecting the world’s current state of affairs in their work, they are not producing work that is objectively exemplifying the state of the existing world today. He described postmodernism as cold, clever, uncommitted, conceptual, and socially indifferent. He feels that postmodernist artists do not feel deeply or think critically about what kind of work they are producing.

I felt that this lecturer, David Walsh, made a few too many sweeping generalizations that I began to find myself frustrated while listening to him boast about his socialist views. He expects all artists to hold a mirror up to the world and make their work according to what is going on outside. How then does he expect the public to get any chance to escape the current world and nations crisises? Why can’t art deviate from these worldly issues and become an optimistic and cheerful outlet for the population?