If you a need lesson in the power of the pen head to this show of ’30s radical art at the Grey Art Gallery
Anyone needing a crash course in the ways the pen can confront the gun should head over to NYU’s Grey Art Gallery, where a decade’s worth of revolutionary art celebrates immigrants, denounces tyrants, ennobles workers of every race–and even illustrates the very idea of terror.
That the art was made eight decades ago only heightens its relevance. “The Left Front: Radical Art in the ‘Red Decade,’ 1929-1940,” opening January 13, focuses on the scathing, idealistic, political art made in the U.S. during the 1930s, against the deepening crisis of the Depression and as war erupted on various fronts overseas.
The U.S. art world was as left-wing as it ever had been–or has been ever since.
Read more in my story on Bedford + Bowery.