In this week’s class we have discussed the existence of postcolonialism art and its significance in the world of art as it pertains to society. We read several pieces on this subject but there is one piece that definitely portrays the notion of postcolonialism best. Olu Oguibe’s “The Culture Game” is a fascinating literary discussion on Occidental manipulation of art, specifically African art. Oguibe uses an interview between an occidental critic from America named Thomas McEvilley and an Ivorian painter named Ouattara to exemplify his objective on what postcolonialism does. Although seemingly innocuous, McEvilley inquistions Ouattara in such a manner to truly suppress his (Ouattara) ability to “speak for himself.” There in lies the oppression of the western culture. McEvilley asks him questions setup so that the answer is a representation of the constructed stigma and image occidental culture has on the “others” or those labeled savage and beneath those not a part of western civilization. What Oguibe expatiates so well is the method by which those from more “civilized” cultures subvert and diminish those in the orient so as to perpetuate their status as inferior. The method is the primary focal point because in order to counter this effort by occidental culture so those outside can free themselves from such oppression one must understand how those oppressing are doing so. In this I find Oguibe’s words most significant. Oguibe stresses in high quantity that when an artist rites, paints, or sculpts his is “enunciating.” This ability to make a statement that expresses who you are and what you individually represent is the fundamental basis for artistic creation. But as the interview in Oguibe’s piece demonstrates, the artist, Ouattara is forced to answer questions such as: where are you from? What tribe are you a part of? With these questions the one enacts his power over another and forces them to implicitly deviate from their individuality and reiterate what western culuture depicts modern African art as. Possibly Oguibe’s most notable point is that without the ability to enounce or speak, an individual has no way to become personalized and is consequently “defaced” in which the anonymity resulting from this makes the modern African artist just another blank face depicting what the one already knows about the other. This process that Oguibe describes so brilliantly is why postcolonialism has been able to hold modern African art in the same inferior location for so long.

For this blog post I have decided to write about two pieces concerning Soviet Socialist Realism. “The Spatial Poetics of Personality Cult Circles Around Stalin,” by Jan Plamper and “Stalin as Isis and Ra: The Socialist Realism and the Art of Design,” by John E. Bowlt juxtapose each other very cohesively. There are many contrasts in the foci of their writings but the overlapping themes are very interesting and the way in which each author discusses these themes and thesis is what I would like to focus on for my discussion. Plamper and Bowlt were explicit in their explanation of Socialist Realism. They describe how the basis for such art revolved around the embodiment of Stalin and his impact, significance, and representation to the Soviet peoples. I believe Plamper was more useful in emphasizing how monumental Stalin intended the people to view him and what his objective was with Socialist Realism. At one point he quoted one of his biographers, Evgeny Katsman, who likened him to Nature, or more specifically the grandest and most towering structures in Nature such as mountains and oceans, or forests.[1] However Plamper was most concerned with how historically the space in which Russia has always structured itself, the circle, was used by Stalin metaphorically to represent his seat in ultimate authority. The Socialist Realist art evidently used the frame or background Stalin would occupy in a circular formation so as to put Stalin in the middle of it which represented his “sacredness.” Now when comparing Plamper to Bowlt, one can see the difference in approach to describing Socialist Realism. Bowlt really focuses on how Socialst Realism art contributed to Stalin as a machine for propaganda and a means of disseminating glorified portraits of Stalin or what Stalin aimed to represent. Bowlt also chronicles not just the 1930’s (late)-1940’s era which epitomized Socialist Realism but the journey in which it took to get their explaining the evolution of the complex artistic fervor of the 1920’s-1930’s(early) into Socialist Realism.

[1] Dobrenko, E A, and Eric Naiman. The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art and Ideology of Soviet Space. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003. Print. Ch. 2, Pg. 25.

For this week’s blog I have chosen to discuss the literary work of Catherine Cooke called “Socialist Realist architecture: theory and practice.” This is a very intriguing piece that focuses on the artistic history, basis, and evolution of Socialist realist art and in specific the architecture that was produced as part of this artistic genre. But in another very interesting piece by Igor Golomstock titled “Totalitarian Art in the Soviet Union, The Third Reich, Fascist Italy, and The People’s Republic of China,” the same ideals of Socialist realist architecture were also covered. In each piece the authors emphasized the meaning and derivation of Socialist Realist architecture. In juxtaposition with one another one can develop a pretty firm notion of Socialist realist architecture. Both Golomstock and Cooke made it transparently clear Stalin intended to create this “mass” architecture that would symbolize and represent the entire people as a whole. Both of these authors stated how one of the primary objectives of socialist realist architecture was to break free of the capitalist driven individuality in the aesthetic that former architecture had created. To do so, a grand centralized structure had to be the shining representation of the entire nation and the nation’s culture. For Stalin his Palace of the Soviets in Moscow (the capital of the USSR) would be the embodiment of such an idea. Golomstock compared this towering structure to Hitler’s House of the People in Berlin (the capital of Germany). An even more important aspect of socialist realism was, what Golomstock quoted, the “speaking architecture” notion. The architecture must tell the tale of the Soviet Union with all its greatness. Golomstock pointed out in one instance the general criticism of two different metro station designs. The Komsomolaskia-koltsevaia metro station was decorated with Soviet hero’s of the past in response to Stalin’s speech about the heroic pastime of Russian warriors. This piece of architecture was highly praised and the architect commended for such work. On the other hand, the Surpukhavskaia metro station was absent such adorning murals and was therefore highly criticized for its lack of national cultural pride. Socialist Realism ushered in a very unique and significant period of architecture that to this day still remains one of the most visited and studied series structures in history.