Under Stalin's Soviet era, there was a single approved art form, Socialist Realism, which was mandated as the "national style." All other forms of art, including Russia's rich history of abstraction and constructivism, were banned as "irrelevant" to the Communist ideal. When Stalin died in 1953, the official aesthetic continued, although by the 1970s, dissident artists used the style ironically to criticize the communist system.
While I was in Moscow, I spent time with a woman from our local office, whose uncle was one of a well-known collective of protest artists in the mid-70s. His work now hung in Moscow's Museum of Modern Art (a wildly decrepit post-modern wonder), and the last weekend I was there, the museum featured an exhibit of one of his fellow painter's work. It was amazing to walk with her through the exhibit as she translated the text in the paintings – they were huge canvases in the Socialist Realist style, overlaid with bold red graphics, often common phrases from Russian life. We stared at a painting of the Kremlin together, over which enormous red text was painted. "I don't get it," she said. "It's a sticker that's on all the windows on trains. It says, 'Do not lean.'"
I explained the double meaning to her.
Culture, in the form of art, has always had a role in social and political commentary. Marat Guelman, Russia's first post-Soviet-era gallery owner, is also a political consultant. Most of the art he supports is anti-Putin – although interestingly, Guelman once consulted with the president, before resigning.
"Putin is trying to create absolute, vertical power," Guelman says. "Under such a structure there is no need for creative people. And so there are three options. You can obey him; an entire political class has decided to obey Putin. There is no opposition. Or you emigrate. Or you can construct your own parallel social media, and exist in it."
Now that's "social media."
No comments:
Post a Comment