Eric Michaud

Propaganda, Art & Advertising : How to Produce the Future

9 May 2025

The role played by images in propaganda is generally considered to be a deliberate lie involving the falsification of a supposedly “objective” reality. I believe instead that one should consider propaganda as an instrument for the construction of reality. Just like art and advertising, propaganda aims to produce a new reality, not to conceal the present one. The example of National Socialism makes this clear.

Required reading:

Jacques Ellul, some pages of Propaganda (1962)

Oscar Wilde, « The Decay of Lying » (Intentions, 1889)

Eric Michaud, The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany, pages from chap. II (1996)

Eric Michaud is Directeur d’études émérite at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. His research interests lie in the relationships between art, politics, propaganda, the anthropological notion of « race » and the notion of the « New Man ». His books include Les invasions barbares. Une généalogie de l’histoire de l’art (Paris, Gallimard, 2015, English translation MIT Press, October Books, 2019 : The Barbarian Invasions. A Genealogy of the History of Art), The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany (Stanford University Press, 2004), and forthcoming in May 2025: La Ruse de Jacob. L’élevage des humains et le modèle de l’art (Paris, Gallimard).