This blog post pertains to my class discussion on participatory art. Through leading the class in discussion and various activities, I learned that participatory art is essentially characterized as the relationship between the artist and other people. In this form of art, the artist attempts to get other people involved in the project, either through direct or indirect content.

For my discussion, I showed various Youtube videos on the subject. These videos provided the class with the basic background and function behind participatory art. I then led the class in a participatory art project, where each student was required to draw an image on the chalkboard that made them happy. At the end of class, we went around the room and each student described their image and the reasons behind drawing it. The entire evolution was evocative, fun, and full of knowledge. I truly think the entire class had fun and did learn the basic concept behind participatory art, which was my primary goal from the beginning.

This blog post is pertaining to my soviet art research paper, which is over different propaganda mechanisms used by the Soviet State in the 1980’s Moscow Olympics; with the purpose of deceiving the international order that the USSR was a supporter of peace and détente, but in fact it was engaged in a controversial Cold War proxy war in Afghanistan. Through  my research, I learned that the USSR utilized several different propaganda mechanisms in the build-up prior to the Games, as well as throughout the 1980’s Olympics. My paper focused on two such mechanisms: the official poster of the 1980 Olympics, as well as the official mascot known as Misha the Bear.

The official poster of the 1980 Olympics was full of symbolism. It portrayed Leonid Brezhnev as the central figure, smiling and waving. In the background was the official Olympic emblem, the USSR flag, and a Russian quote that advocated peace and friendship. I believe that these symbols and the poster overall was used as a propaganda mechanism by the Soviet State in order to portray itself as something it was not at the time: a friendly nation state that supported world peace and détente.

My second artistic example I used was the official mascot, Misha the Bear. Misha was portrayed as a cute, cuddly, smiling bear cub. The mascot is still popular today and was a massive public hit during the 1980 Olympics, as well as being utilized in several of its ceremonies. I believe that the bear also contained several propagandistic symbols, such as: a friendly demeanor, an approachable aura, and a soft appearance. However, I liken its true nature and symbolism to that of a real bear, aggressive on the attack and tenacious on the defense.

Thus, the Soviet State utilized various forms of propaganda in the 1980 Olympic games. By doing so, it attempted to “pull the wool” over the world’s eyes in other activities it was involved in at this same time, such as the Russian invasion of Afghanistan; an event that exasperated the entire international community and threatened the very fabric of the delicate Cold War US-Russo relationship.

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Artists Komar and Melamid have been pivotal in the portray of art and history under repressive and autocratic governments since the 1970’s. According to Valerie Hillings, the duo have used their artwork to “debate, negotiate, and critique the process by which governments and other power elites manipulate both history and art history in their efforts to achieve specific ideological goals” (1). I thought it was very interesting how the two artists approached the task of incorporating all of Soviet society into an exhibit, as the task must have been monumental because it was during this time that many of Soviet era art pieces were also being destroyed after the collapse of the regime. I liked how the artists incorporated major symbols of Soviet history onto the cover of the catalogue, to include Lenin’s head, the hammer, and the sickle. The setting sun beneath all these symbols represented the dawn of a new era, which I think captured the entire movement quite well.

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Golomstock’s article, “Totalitarian Art”, focused on how Hitler and Stalin’s regimes incorporated the role and function of architecture into their respective totalitarian systems. After reading and discussing this article in class, it became clear that each dictator incorporated architecture into each of their societies very similarly, but that Hitler drew upon some lessons learned from Stalin. Another concept that stood out for me was that each regime had a very centralized control on the development, implementation, and functionality of architecture. It was also apparent the effect that the post-war environment had on the development of architecture, for example the Soviet Union had grandiose plans to rebuild the several thousand buildings destroyed during the war, in order to “reflect the sense of pride of the Soviet people in their Socialist State” (275). I found it interesting that at the center of each rebuilt town was intended to be the tallest building in the city, and the height of this building would reflect the importance that Moscow thought the city held (277). Personally, I didn’t understand how these regimes put this enormous amount of time, effort, money, and sacrifice into the aesthetics of their totalitarian architecture, and then having indifferent feelings about them being destroyed. For example, Hitler said in 1941 that it would be to no great loss if English bombs destroyed the German capital (280). Perhaps this indifferent mindset towards the architecture points towards his psychological decline and ultimate demise of Nazi Germany, for how could all this focus on returning to the Greek roots be all for waste?

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In Mark Edele’s article, “Paper Soldiers”, he argues that “wartime iconography was characterized by strongly polyvalent symbols which were open to many different “readings.” After initial failures to make posters relevant to frontline soldiers, artists soon learned to employ powerful and adaptable symbols. Their ability to learn was greater than before the war, because a consider- able decentralization had brought them closer to their public. The growing polyphony helped to forge the necessary solidarity – possibly without real consensus: A soldier was free to choose from various possible interpretations of what was at stake in the war, and he (or she) could imagine to be part of a particular community of values – one out of many constructed by the posters” (Edele, 90). From Edele’s thesis, it is clear that Soviet wartime posters had a significant influence on effecting the persuasion of the Soviet public on emotion, nationalism, and patriotism, in term of the war effort.

From these war posters, the Soviet regime was able to effectively portray its wartime aspirations as victorious and noble in three main dimensions: the front, the homefront, and behind the front (98). Soviet wartime posters often times tried to portray its images in a way that showed women and children being raped or murdered if Soviet men did not step up and join the Red Army. By drawing on this nationalism to protect Mother Russia, Soviet wartime posters effectively got men to join the ranks. As we talked about it class, another way that Soviet wartime posters capitalized on nationalism was through the use of socialist realism, in that the posters portrayed the Soviet military as regimented, organized, well equipped, and powerful.

This couldn’t be further from the truth, as actual conditions on the front line of the war were horrid and unevenly matched in terms of military capabilities. Thus, this form of socialist realism wasn’t necessarily as effective in getting the Soviet men to join the Red Army, as many citizens saw through the idealism and knew the real truth; the Red Army was ill-equipped, under-manned, and poorly led into the war. Perhaps the most effective usage of the Soviet wartime posters was through the utilization of religious connotations within the posters, as the author emphasizes in his conclusion, “The many religious connotations in posters were surely not accidental. Two-thirds of the men in the Red Army were called up from the still deeply religious and anti-Soviet countryside” (104). Thus, it is clear that Soviet state used commissioned artists to create posters that capitalized on the religious background of the people.

In conclusion, Soviet wartime posters were useful means of mass propaganda, as production was cheap and the posters had the ability to appeal to multiple dimensions of the “consumers” through the trifecta of sensory application: most importantly the visual application of the poster, second the large slogan on the poster, and thirdly the background text/description of the poster. Through this trifecta, multiple classes of the people were addressed from the illiterate to the scholars, in order to mobilize the entire country to help out the war effort.

Deineka’s The Conversation of the Collective Farm Brigade is a very interesting piece of art because it exlimpifies Alexander Deineka’s transitional career from modernism to Socialist realism. In Christina Kair’s article “Was Socialist Realism Forced Labor”, she explains that “Deineka was actively attempting to find a way to work within the famously opaque proclamation of Socialist Realism as ‘the depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. Deineka’s retreat from the pictorial instability of the earlier, modernist work would, in the dominant narrative of the demise of the avant-garde under the pressure of Socialist Realism, signal a transition from a – good – dialectical socialist body to a – bad – stabilized, Stalinist one” (327).

Deineka began to participate in Soviet contract system called kontraktatsiia, “in which
branches of the central state commissioning agency, VseKoKhudozhnik, entered into contracts with artists, stipulating that a certain number of works be produced within a certain period of time – often works on
a certain theme, or works to be produced on the basis of a paid field trip or kommandirovka, undertaken individually or in organized groups, to agricultural or industrial destinations” (334). However, despite this contract system and its stipulations that artists create art to a certain theme, Deineka’s “Construction of the Collective Farm Brigade” work is full of defiance. The art piece is full of confusion and it appears that the figures are asking questions about the collective farm rather than being full of confidence. Kiaer writes “The very pictorial form of this highprofile commissioned work, in other words, inserts a moment of doubt about how the collective farm will achieve the wished-for socialist community, and thus shares the reticence of Deineka’s other pictures of
Soviet bodies” (335).

Thus, although Deineka was restricted in many senses by the Soviet contracting system, he still was able to protest in an artistic way through “The Construction”. The reason behind this was because he didn’t agree with the lack of artistic freedom that existed within the Soviet Union at the time.

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The Moscow Metro was built in 1935 under the direction of the Stalin regime. It would come to be the first underground transportation system in the Soviet Union. According to a speech given by L.M. Kaganovich in 1935, the metro “goes far beyond the ordinary understanding of technical construction. Our metropolitan is a symbol [my emphasis] of the new socialist society currently being built . . . and operating upon bases utterly opposed to those upon which capitalist society has been constructed” (Ryklin, 262). From this contemporary assessment, a clear sense of symbolism can be derived from the building of the Moscow Metro.

The construction of the Moscow Metro was symbolic in itself, as Ryklin described that it had “conspiratorial nature” (263). Much of the actual construction of the metro was full of conspiracy, with the State lying or deceiving the public. This was seen when the state hid from the public that the metro had militaristic purposes. The state also portrayed to the public that it had built the metro entirely on its own accord, with zero aide from foreign countries, which turned out to be false (Ryklin, 263-264). I believe this conspiritual nature of the construction of the Moscow Metro is symbolism for the way Stalin’s regime operated during this time. We talked in class how Stalin is always portrayed in artwork as leaning forward in a military uniform, as a symbol for Soviet advancement. Thus, the Stalin regime gave the construction of the Moscow Metro more credit to the State then it actually deserved. Even though it was cutting edge for its time, the Soviets did receive foreign engineering aide, as well as mobilizing their entire society into constructing it, thus simultaneously putting other aspects of their society on hold during this time period.

The above Youtube video provided me several interesting images of the Moscow Metro which advanced my conceptualization of what it looked like soon after it was constructed.

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Factography, a Soviet art technique/concept, emerged in the 1920’s. This technique is a branch-off of the photomontage and incorporates many of the same characteristics as its predecessor. However, a major difference occurs from photomontage to factography in the sense that factography portrays a series of stories in a documentary-like fashion, but alters specific facts in order to convey a certain message. Sara Bailey characterizes factography as, “Because there was no room for fiction, no art for art’s sake, the communist regime created a series of stories, a collective mythology, out of pieces from the past using real people, real places, and real events, only shifting and spinning the facts behind each to reach a greater truth, a common understanding of reality” (http://www.cddc.vt.edu/journals/newriver/08Spring/bailey/Home.html).

From the concept of factography given above, it can be derived that reality is altered in some way through its usage. This is clearly seen when Alexander Rodchenko documented the construction of the White Seal Canal in 1931. He was employed by the communist regime to photograph the “heroic technological achievements of the Stalin government and to produce a volume of photographic record” (Buchloh, 117).  This act alone would not be considered factography, but Rodchenko made a moral (or unmoral depending on how you look at it) decision to not document the 100,000 plus workers who died during the construction of this massive canal.

Most likely, Rodchenko chose to not portray the construction of the White Sea Canal in its true and honest light because he was employed by the state and would have lost his job. As Buchloh puts it, “it is undoubtedly clear that at this time Rodchenko did not have any other choice than to comply with the interest of the State Publishing House if he wanted to maintain his role as an artist who participated actively in the construction of the new Soviet society” (117). I found it very interesting that he made this decision, as it must have been a very tough ethical/moral decision to make. I believe that more than his job was likely on the line, probably also his life at the hands of the Stalin regime if he chose to expose the inhuman conditions. Nonetheless, “his subsequent publications on the subject only project a grandiose vision of nature harnessed by technology and the criminal and hedonistic impulses of the prerevolutionary and counterrevolutionary personality mastered through the process of reeducation in the forced labor camps of the White Sea Canal” (Buchloh, 117).

Thus, Rodchenko used the technique of factography to obscure the decrepit and deadly work on the canal and simultaneously portrayed the technological/industrial progress of the Soviet Union during this time.

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According to the Villalobos reading, faktura was a specific way in which materials were manipulated to create a work of art. Faktura’s focus was more on the emphasis of the actual means of production itself, and didn’t necessarily place a strong emphasis on the actual finished art form. Another interesting facet of faktura is that it can be interpreted in many ways depending on the artist or country. Focusing on Tatlin and Soviet Union interpretation, Tatlin believed that “materiological determination meant that the reliefs would not respond to a preconceived metaphor or subject matter – but it would neither mean that the gathering of materials was arbitrary. The reliefs would allow materials to speak for themselves” (Villalobos, 11).

Tatlin’s interpretation of faktura can be seen in several of his reliefs, such as his counter reliefs he created for “Zero Ten”. These pieces were described as achieving “a new level of material heterogeneity, as metal, wood and rope now incorporate in their dialogue the physical forces that act upon them. Mass is arranged in dialogue with the void. Furthermore, as faktura denoted a dynamic process of material handling, it is congruent for the work of art to be set into a state of physical strain. Suspended in equilibrium, the counter-reliefs become performances of faktura” (Villalobos, 16). Thus, it can be seen that Tatlin did not just throw materials together and proclaim it art, but instead he incorporated very particular materials together in way that hinted at their physical functions in real life.

Tatlin’s view of faktura can be seen vividly in many of his art pieces. However, rather than discuss his many reliefs and other art pieces that are already known for being examples for faktura, I believe that I can apply Tatlin’s definition of faktura to his largest constructivism project in his career, “Monument to the Third International”. I believe that the idea of Tatlin’s Tower in itself is a prime example of faktura, because it involves the manipulation of various materials on a very large scale. His tower was not “responding to a preconceived metaphor”, that being of traditional buildings of the time period. But instead it paved the way for the constructivism art movement, engineers, and architects as a new way of thinking. The fact that the tower was never finished also has an important element of faktura; not focusing on the final product. Although obviously most pieces of art do get finished, it is interesting that this massive monument was essentially a giant art piece that was so caught up in the methods and means of production, that it was never produced.

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Piss Christ

The Piss Christ was an art piece created by Andres Serrano in 1987. The artist took a cheap, plastic crucifix and submerged it into a glass of his own urine. Serrano then photographed the crucifix and provided the description of his urine and name “Piss Christ”. The public reception was mixed to say the least.

On one hand, Serrano received approximately $20,000 and was the winner of the “Southeastern Center for Contemporary Arts” award. Sister Beckett, a Catholic nun/art critic, stated in an interview that she didn’t think the piece of art was blasphemous. Instead, she thought that Piss Christ was a strong metaphor for what society has done to Christ and how society has come to think the values he represents.

On the negative side, the piece of art caused quite a bit of hate towards Serrano, to include death threats and negative emails/mail. Critics proclaimed that Serrano violated the separation between church and state because his piece of art was funded by the government. In 2011, Piss Christ was vandalized by Christian protestors beyond repair while it was on display in France and again in 2012 while it was on display in New York.

It is clear that Piss Christ is steeped in controversy and has many meanings. Personally, I think that it is disrespectful to the Christian faith because urine is a “waste” that is excreted by the human body. This to me stands as a metaphor as what contemporary society thinks about religion. Although I have these views, I do believe that Piss Christ is a form of art because the artist does manipulate his choice of medium (the crucifix) and transforms it into a series of ideas. It is also clear that Serrano uses multitudes of emotion during this creation, as well as creativity. So as controversial and disrespectful that Piss Christ might seem, society needs to realize that this is art and should stop trying to destroy it with hammers.

Below is a video on the overview of Piss Christ and how it was attacked in France.

Help Received: Wikipedia for general information, google images, youtube