Photographer Maria Svarbova focuses on the Communist-era swimming pools of her native Slovakia.
communism
Posted inBooks
The Graphic Persuasiveness of 20th-Century Communist Posters
The first major survey of communist poster art considers the visual legacy of propaganda graphic design in nations around the world.
Posted inBooks
Communist China’s Cheery Propaganda Posters
In the thousands of propaganda posters produced in China between the birth of the People’s Republic in 1949 and the early 1980s, the beaming face of Chairman Mao Zedong watches over a surreal utopia.
Posted inNews
Soviet Symbols Going Up and Coming Down
It’s been nearly a quarter century since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but the physical reminders of Central and Eastern Europe’s communist past are still provoking controversy.
Posted inBooks
The Bleak Banality of Shopping in Communist Europe
“In a cityscape largely without commercial seduction, the banality of the shop windows underscored a real cultural difference between East and West,” photographer David Hlynsky writes in his introduction to Window-Shopping Through the Iron Curtain.
Posted inArt
Picturing a Communist Revolution in the US
Different artists disagree as to how communist convictions are best or most effectively visualized, and the best part of The Left Front is the methodological tension that underwrites the varied approaches on display.
Posted inOpinion
Artists Confront the Uncomfortable Legacy of Lenin
This week, two men made headlines when they doused the tomb of the Soviet Union’s first leader Vladimir Lenin with holy water while reportedly shouting “Rise up and leave!”
Posted inBooks
How Hungary’s Painted Homes Rebelled Against the Socialist System
As a reaction to the bleak uniformity of suburban housing in post-war Hungary, many homeowners painted their houses in vibrant designs.
Posted inArt
Memories of China: Yang Fudong’s Nostalgic Disillusionment
BERKELEY, Calif. — Yang Fudong is known to chronicle contemporary China’s affluent and disaffected urban youth in atmospheric works that evoke Shanghai cinema of the 1930s golden age.
Posted inArt
Ghosts Of Glasnost: “Ostalgia” At The New Museum
The specter of communism currently haunts the New Museum in its summer “bloc-buster” exhibition “Ostalgia.” It’s an ambitious project that consumes most of the galleries with a swirling conglomeration of disparate mediums, artists, scales and concepts that reflect the miasmic atmosphere of post-Soviet territories.
Posted inArt
Seeking Truth Through Karaoke In Chinese Communist Art
There’s Communism in the air here in Beijing! With the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party having just passed (per official accounts, the Party was founded July 1, 1921), China is in the midst of a country-wide celebration—and one that presents the perfect opportunity to take a look at some examples of crowd-sourced and “official” Party-related art.