Eric Aarons – Art and Politics

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Sor­ry for the late notice here (the total crash of my ISP pre­vent­ed me from post­ing when I had hoped to—and thanks to Phil Stevens for his bril­liant work in reviv­ing the site from the wreck­age), but if any­one in Syd­ney has free time today (Sun­day 14 April) I rec­om­mend attend­ing this event between 2:00 pm and 5:00 pm. It is a festschrift to Eric Aarons, a remark­able man whom I am proud to call a friend.

Eric Aarons, now 94 years old, has been a sig­nif­i­cant fig­ure in left and pro­gres­sive pol­i­tics for over six­ty years.

For the last forty years he has also been a suc­cess­ful sculp­tor in wood, mar­ble, gran­ite, con­crete, steel and oth­er mate­ri­als. Most of Eric’s more than 200 sculp­tures reflect his com­mit­ments to social jus­tice and human rights, with­in and between nations and peo­ples, and to the impor­tance of emo­tions and val­ues in human life.

Over the last 20 years he has writ­ten sev­er­al books and many arti­cles reflect­ing on his life and expe­ri­ences in pol­i­tics, and the need for new think­ing for the left. Cen­tral to this new think­ing is our com­mon need to pre­serve the envi­ron­ment, along­side shap­ing a just soci­ety which val­ues and respects all peo­ple.

Born just after World War I, Eric’s life was shaped by the after­math of the slaugh­ter of that Great War and the Great Depres­sion of his ear­ly teens. He joined the Com­mu­nist Par­ty while study­ing sci­ence at uni­ver­si­ty, and lat­er worked for it in many capac­i­ties, includ­ing as a nation­al sec­re­tary in the late 1970s.

The CPA con­demned the 1968 Sovi­et inva­sion of Czecho­slo­va­kia, which end­ed the Prague Spring and “social­ism with a human face”, and the fail­ures of the repres­sive Sovi­et sys­tem as a whole. Eric began a long process of rethink­ing his ear­li­er com­mit­ments to ortho­dox Marx­ism and the Sovi­et mod­el of social­ism. In the 1990s and 2000s he pub­lished five books, includ­ing a detailed con­sid­er­a­tion of the philoso­phies of Friedrich Hayek and Karl Marx, the two thinkers who most influ­enced the pol­i­tics and his­to­ry of the 20^th Cen­tu­ry.

The Casu­la Pow­er­house Art Cen­tre is host­ing an event to hon­our Eric’s wide-rang­ing con­tri­bu­tions to art, pol­i­tics and polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy.

MC and Intro­duc­tion:

Kon Gou­ri­o­tis, Direc­tor, Aus­tralian Cen­tre of Pho­tog­ra­phy and for­mer Direc­tor of Casu­la Pow­er­house Art Cen­tre

Speak­ers:

• Mered­ith Burgmann – ALP and pro­gres­sive left activist, and for­mer Pres­i­dent of the NSW Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil
• Pro­fes­sor Steve Keen – author of Debunk­ing Eco­nom­ics
• Drew Hut­ton – Pres­i­dent of the “Lock the Gate Alliance” fight­ing irre­spon­si­ble min­ing, long­time envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­er, and a co-founder of the Aus­tralian Greens
• Mar­garet West – artist, poet and essay­ist

Join us – and Eric – for an after­noon of dis­cus­sion and cel­e­bra­tion.

Refresh­ments pro­vid­ed.