Hans Hess Sweatshirt: History Does Not Only happen to People, People Also Happen to History

History is much more than documenting events and people. With the collapse of the anthropocentric concept of the world, human beings’ position in the universe, or space and time has changed. Hess writes about the realisation at the end of the nineteenth century that people are active agents in their own history, and in the history of humankind. History and people are not static entities, but powerful forces impacting one another. Hess says that ‘man is the object as well as the subject of history’: history does not just happen to people, treating them as subjects in a story, or pawns in a game. History is facts, but also has the power to change facts. Hess says that this new concept of history means we not only need to study what determines circumstances - a sociology - but specifically a study of society, as advocated by Claude Lévi-Strauss, rather than solely a study ‘of man in society’.
Thus for Hess our search for knowledge about different cultures needs to be an understanding of people as psychological, sociological and physiological entities.

The texts gathered in Hans Hess: Selected Writings are tools for thinking about and questioning art, the artist, art history, and ideology. Expanding on the writings of Marx, Hess discusses the evolving role and status of the artist. Art and the artist have always played an important ideological role in society – and in the class struggle. A work of art cannot be understood if taken out of its social and ideological context. Art has always been an instrument of power, especially for the ruling ideology. The first volume focuses on art in the 19th century.

PRODUCT DETAILS:
100% Cotton
Classic width, rib collar
Taped neck and shoulders
Classic fit