The young critics Hannah Forbes Black and Natasha Rees of murmurART have shared some ideas about All That Remains Teenagers of Socialism, for more details see:
It was interesting reading how these fellow Brits view this collection of European artists who grew up in a world that we can only imagine. I often find myself lazily fantasising that all Soviet life in the Eastern Bloc was lacking in colour, deprived of all worldly pleasures and repressed in regards to individual expression.
I notice that one of the critics was struck by how Buskova’s colourful and anarchic exploration of pre-socialist rural culture seemed to stand out. Indeed the focus of her work existed before, during and after Communism, so it does not exemplify what it was like to live under communism in a very concrete and literal sense. However Buskova’s liberated and improvised takes on historic traditions perhaps exemplify best how repression and restriction can paradoxically foster and enhance the imaginative, experimental and individualistic capacities of artists and all other citizens.
I recall her mother discussing how she felt that there really was little money, few opportunities for free public expression and no London style personal indulgence; however the importance of stories, books and fantasy worlds grew in importance, for at least her. This reminds me of Bulgakov’s Master & Margarita in which the tapestry of Soviet oppression of creative expression is explored richly, but always indirectly through wild magical realism and black humour. I cannot speak for the other countries, in which the artists of the show grew up, but these appear to be distinctive features of some of the most inspiring Czech arts created by people who didn’t just imagine what it was like to live the Soviet way.
Marxism may always remain popular amongst western avant garde art lovers and many of the artists may be understandably unwilling to view their childhood as entirely ravaged by vile totalitarian political radicalism. Despite this I would discourage this exhibition from being included in any misguided nostalgic revisionism. No amount of Lacanian slight-of-hand or distraction with references to philosophical deconstructionist concepts can hide the facts of the Gulags. I would advise that these teenage artists of socialism should not be viewed as unusual fruits of an alternative viable political regime, but people who demonstrate how we can manage to survive assaults on individual expression. At the least, their work makes a change from some of the dull patterns borne from too much indulgence and a very capitalist art bubble that had to burst.
0 comments:
Post a Comment