Althusser's Overlooked Essays on Cuban Painters Reveal Philosophical Shifts

Two often overlooked essays by French Marxist thinker Louis Althusser, focusing on Cuban artists Roberto Álvarez Ríos and Wifredo Lam, reflect significant shifts in his intellectual journey. Composed in 1962 and 1977, these pieces illustrate his transition from Hegelian Marxism to structural Marxism during the early 1960s, and later to aleatory materialism in the late 1970s. Titled 'A Young Cuban Painter Before Surrealism: Álvarez Ríos' and 'Lam,' the articles highlight Althusser's interaction with contemporary Third World issues, a theme infrequently explored in his other writings. Contextualized within the socio-political landscape of French philosophy from the 1960s to 70s, they also engage with Lacanian psychoanalysis and the philosophy of history. This introductory essay, published by Bécquer Seguín on June 5, 2017, examines how these artistic discussions reveal broader philosophical transformations, available via MIT Press with subscription access.