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Posted by Becky | 27th July, 2011
The New Museum, New York, took on a seminal task when it decided to exhibit and explore the work of Russian and Eastern European artists who were active around the time of the fall of Communism.
The catalogue describes the premise of the exhibition as ‘not an authoritative history of the Communist period, but instead [the exhibition] seeks to sketch a psychological portrait of the region and, in doing so, expose the myths and memories that unite a diverse range of artists.’ This approach has clearly opened up the selection process, thereby providing the curator with a substantial increase of freedom in his choice of works (if, perhaps, too much).
With the term ‘Ostalgia’ being derived from the German words ‘Ost’ and ‘Nostalgie’, the title of the exhibition literally means ‘nostalgia for the East’ (in all its Communistic glory). Having been to other comparable exhibitions in both London and Paris, I was not expecting to see anything out of the usual. Yet, meandering around the faceted floor space of The New Museum I was pleasantly surprised at the tone. There were no cliché pop-art hammer and sickles of the Sots Art variety, although a series of the superstar Bulatov was unsurprisingly/unfortunately included, and no commodification of the face of Lenin; instead there was a variety of references to the Communist past that had real emotional depth – even for a Westerner born around the time of the fall of the Berlin wall.
Standing in front of Deimantas Narkevicius’ film Once in the XX Century, 2004 the onlooker is pushed into a broken world of falling symbols. The eight minute long video captures the dismantling of a statue of Lenin in Vilnius, Lithuania, just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Using footage from a television archive, the short film projects the de-monumentalisation of the once venerated icon. (This idea could also be seen in Anatoly Osmolovsky’s A Voyage of Netsezudik to Brobdingnag (Mayakovsky – Osmolovsky) 1993 where the artist climbed atop a robust statue, at once infantilising the stoic symbol of authority). The chilling documentation of an icon from a fallen empire gliding through the air, hoisted by a crane, begins to feel almost farcical; what’s more, Narkevicius has edited this film in reverse, making the audience acutely aware that for every fallen monument there will always be a replacement.
This blend of macabre humour and nostalgia is also evident in a number of sculptures by Russian artist David Ter-Oganyan. As you enter the lift at ground floor level, you are greeted with the first example lying in the corner of the oppressive space. This Is Not a Bomb 2011 consists of three Coca Cola bottles wired together. The ‘timers’ attached to these sculptures, which are dotted around the exhibition, remind the viewer of the fearful and unexpected aspects of revolution. Such thought provoking high-jinx by a young artist (born 1981) makes one wonder if this is a brave attempt at humour or a step-too-far in security conscious New York …
The premise that the curator Massimiliano Gioni has worked with has given this exhibition the scope it needs to project a fresh insight into the fall of Communism. What’s more, the geographical breadth that Ostalgia incorporates cannot fail to encourage new thinking around this ‘fashionable’ topic.
Through Ostalgia, The New Museum has encouraged wider thinking around a pivotal moment in time, a commission that has been long overdue. Unfortunately, this high standard is not reflected in the somewhat poor reproductions of the black and white catalogue. If at all possible, go to New York and see this wonderful exhibition, but don’t be in a rush to buy the book.
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