Meaning of capitalist realism | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A short-lived German pop art movement of the 1960s.
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2. An ideological framework for viewing capitalism and its effects on politics, economics, and public thought.
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Examples

“Back in West Berlin, Rene Block thought the term 'Capitalist Realism' resonated strongly with other kinds of 'new realism' taking place there, in the shadow of the GDR. In 1971 he used the term again for a show of prints, but disappointedly […]”

“Richter's concept of 'capitalist realism' alluded to the doctrines of socialist realism east of the border. These approaches were taken further in the actions of Happening and Fluxus artists in the wake of the student movement.”

“Following two earlier major Sigmar Polke shows, at Tate Liverpool in 1996 and Tate Modern in 2005, this extensive retrospective aims to show the German painter, film-maker and sculptor in full. A founder, with Gerhard Richter, of capitalist realism (a rejoinder to British and American pop art) in the 1960s), Polke went on to make an enormous variety of hallucinatory, poisonous, gorgeous and unsettling works that still reverberate with a strange, dark humour.”

“It captures the psychic transformation this generation has gone through: smashing through the glass at Millbank, struggling through the hard lines of the kettle, and finally piercing capitalist realism's façade: an aperture through which now flows […]”

“With regard to The Wire, this definition has largely revolved around the capitalist realism of society, or the reality that money rules and determines everything.”

“In the face of the 'grand narrative' of capitalist realism, the film counters with a demystifying alternative story, erecting a protective shield to insulate the informed viewer from the shock effect of the neo-liberal narrative.”

“With each new stage in postmodernity, from its post-Keynesian beginning to the “end of history” period, and even today in capitalist realism, the film has received new treatment, marking the historical moment in some way. It is postmodern simulation and simulacra of itself.”

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