Villa in Asmara

Professor Paul Jaskot and Mark Antliff, Anne Murnick Cogan Professor of Art and Art History, co-organized the session, Global Fascism, at the annual meeting of the College Art Association in February.

The study of fascism in art history has its roots in the (originally marginalized) interest of leftist art historians of the 1960s and 1970s in the topic of art in Italy and German under fascist regimes. Since then, while not exactly mainstream, the relationship of art to fascist politics and ideology has become an accepted topic. But what of the vast number of fascist and fascist-aligned regimes and parties beyond Italy and Germany? Fascist states and fascist factions have been active in a wide variety of contexts and for different reasons. Art and cultural policy have often been an important part of those political activities. Can we talk about a global art history of fascism?

This session called for papers that address the broad range of fascist states, parties, and groups that have engaged in cultural debate and production. While also interested in proposals on Italian and German topics, contributions were encouraged from geographies and regimes not usually discussed in terms of fascist art and politics, from Argentina to Rumania, from Japan to Brazil, from France to Finland. Also encouraged were proposals that engage comparative perspectives on fascism and art, preserving the particularity of different social and political contexts but nevertheless analyzing how art history can say something critical about a broader definition of fascism and culture. In addition, explorations of contemporary expressions of fascism and cultural production were also considered relevant.