Exhibition: "April Thesis" – April 2008

“Why Lenin? - The unforgotten old and the unknown new”

Why did BACTRIA decided to mark the birthday of the 20th century’s cult politician Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin with an exhibition named after the well-known “April Theses”? This was an attempt to return to an historical epoch that is sinking into oblivion and to find out how much this hero is alive among the living of the 20th century. At the same time, representatives of contemporary art, who are distanced from those times, when creativity belonged to the political sphere, were given full freedom to express their own vision of the main ideologies of Soviets. In the exhibition “coexisted” the elevated spirit and styles of epic, eulogy and zeal of proclaimed art as well as ironical and at times playful works. The only thing that combined works of these two different approaches regardless of style, technique, size and genre is the main character that is recognized everywhere, even in an abstract expression, in the form of a lightbulb wearing a cap (inventive and powerful video work “Ilyich’s bulb” by Aleksey Rumjantseva.) 

There is no point being deluded and thinking that only socialist and authoritative governments generated such propaganda and culture. The concept of heroes as moral and living examples for their own citizens came about already in the antiquities, has been successfully used in all eras and is perfectly “working” in our times as well. Canonical expression always consists of two basic functions – the first one gives an individual and earthly existence while the other one gives a “public face”, a more symbolic form to its heroes. Symbolism allowed drawing, sculpting, embroidering, carving and printing canonical expressions in various materials, continuously picturing those poses, acts and costumes that were carefully thought out by government entities. 

In the applied art works surrounded by plant-like decorations, similar to a “heavenly feast”, the builder of peace poses as someone equal with gods, while in the monumental statues in “spiritual and inaccessible scale” he towers over people. In one word, these totalitarian and academic works are nothing less than political messages to the people, circulated to every place they managed to penetrate.

In the past, material substance of the leader with his strictly regulated portraiture served as a model of cultural identity in the Soviet era. Nowadays it has lost its previous meaning but continues to be recognized by everyone. This phenomenon allows contemporary artists to interpret normative expressions while breaking down the frames of law. In contemporary art “unlikeness” of works of arts and the expression of their own vision is most important. In this context the exhibition presented completely unexpected solutions. Here the witty replacement of faces of heroes in the iconographic format of Soviet monuments (photography of Muroda Sharipova), there modest in value, charming but cheap badges showing Volodja in childhood and Ilijich in maturity (interesting photo series of Jamshed Kholikov) and a parallel shown between the traditional finger pointing leaders and Tajik police carrying their rods (large scale banners of Aziza Rustamova.)

This small exhibition with the traditional title “April Theses” turned out to be rare, intriguing, instructive and to a certain extent shocking. Curators found a successful means of realizing their ideas, accompanied by songs performed by the ensemble of Tajik-Russian Slavonic University. Symbolically, at the opening nature showed its power. Pouring rain like a revolutionary riot became an accompaniment to the collapse of ideas.