During the 1920s-30s, the avant-garde sought to establish a new type of spectator, a new type of art and a new kind of interaction between the two. The radical change in the perception of the world through radically conceived art was believed to be able to facilitate social change too. But first, art was to descend from its elitist throne and become re-integrated with the everyday life.
Mass Culture As a Tool of Social Change
Photomontage as an art form combined all three of the above conditions and as such was seen as an ideal vehicle for social transformation. For example, John Heartfield’s photomontage has a more powerful effect than other contemporary forms of representation because it engages the viewer with the means of its construction and because it uses the images derived from mass culture.
This combination allows for associations that extend beyond the capacity of a conventional photograph or painting. The viewer is required to engage with the image in a new way. Creating a new type of spectator was another requirement of the avant-garde reintegration effort where the viewer is not just a passive recipient but engages actively in producing the meaning of the work of art.
Modern Art for Communism
Demand for modernist form had been on the avant-garde agenda already in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the artistic ambitions it had generated. The reintegration of art and life as a part of the process of social transformation was most prominent in the activities of Soviet avant-garde with the majority of artists dedicated to communism.
‘Art into Life’ was a Constructivist slogan and avant-garde art practices were to be incorporated methodically into the material reality of daily life thus contributing to the formation of a new type of society and a new type of social consciousness. Soviet avant-gardists saw themselves as representatives of proletarian art. For them, modernist form was associated with a new social reality. The true transformation of society required revolution in every aspect of life, including culture.
Aleksandr Rodchenko and Soviet Constructivism
The work of Aleksandr Rodchenko exemplifies dedication to form identified with commitment to the building of a new communist society. Through unusual angles employed in his photographs, he wanted to revolutionise everyday ordinary life. By offering viewers new viewpoints, he wanted to alter perception, thus changing the preconceived notions, or learned notions of the worldview.
John Hearfield Subversion of the Fascist Propaganda
Heartfield used similar strategy to alert the viewer’s perception by combining the pictures and text in an unusual way. The political slogan of the Fascist propaganda, ‘Millionen Stehen Hinter Mir’ or ‘Millions Stand Behind Me’, takes on a radically different meaning when combined with the small figure of Hitler whose hand extended in his typical gesture seems to be receiving the stack of money from the large figure of an anonymous businessman standing behind him.
Scott King and Mass Culture in Contemporary Art
Heartfield and Rodchenko utilised the techniques and media of the mass culture as a means of direct campaign against the political system in the 1930s Germany and to champion the communist ideology in Russia respectively. Several decades later, Post War and Post Cold War, references to mass culture in contemporary art reflect a different worldview much owing to the unprecedented culture of consumerism.
Scott King’s Pink Cher represents an attitude of blatant sarcasm. The image of a pop star disguised as the revolutionary Che Guevara is accompanied by a slogan ‘Do you believe in revolution?’ but I cannot help but cringe at the rhetorical meaning of that question and its mockery of my own material pleasures.
For more information on Scott King and his work please visit:
www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/scott_king.htm
Sources:
- Edwards, Steve and Wood, Paul (ed.), Art of the Avant-Gardes, New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with The Open University, 2004
- Gaiger, Jason (ed.), Frameworks of Modern Art, New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with The Open University, 2003
- Gaiger, Jason and Wood, Paul (ed.), Art of the Twentieth Century: A Reader, New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with The Open University, 2003
- Harrison, Charles and Wood, Paul (ed.), Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Blackwell Publishing, 2003
- Perry, Gill and Wood, Paul (ed.), Themes in Contemporary Art, New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with The Open University, 2004
- Wood, Paul (ed.), Varieties of Modernism, New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with The Open University, 2004
Zuzana Minarikova - I live in London and work in publishing in Bloomsbury which is an exciting part of London, full of museums, galleries, bookshops and ...
