Capitalist Realism's Origins Traced in ARTMargins Special Issue Introduction

In May 1963, the term Capitalist Realism was independently introduced by German artists Gerhard Richter, Konrad Lueg, Sigmar Polke, and Manfred Kuttner. This coincided with similar conceptual explorations by Japanese artist Akasegawa Genpei in February 1964. Both groups emerged from postwar artistic movements such as Pop, Fluxus, Nouveau Réalisme, happenings, and Anti-Art. Their works utilized ironic adaptations of consumer goods and advertisements to critique capitalism as both an economic framework and a dominant ideology, aiming to expose how capitalism reproduces itself in daily life. The introduction links these Cold War developments to the evolution of capitalism following the fall of the communist bloc, discussing the ongoing relevance of Capitalist Realist methods in today’s neoliberal art scene. This text was published on October 5, 2015, in a special issue by MIT Press.