Socialist Realism & DADA - art movement

DADA:

Art became a rebellion against war, taking the form of political expression through radical, nonsensical and irrational behaviour to show consciousness and defiance of political instability in Europe)

• Originated in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I, a neutral refuge for artists and intellectuals alike horrified by the war’s destruction.

• Formed as a reaction against nationalism, militarism, and rational thought, which artists blamed for leading Europe into chaos.

AIM & belief

to destroy all societal expectations of traditional art values and expose the absurdity of a world that had embraced violence. 

Dadaists believed all reason and logic had failed due to the war and so they turned to nonsense, spontaneity, and irrationality as artistic protest. 

EXAMPLE:

Raoul Hausmann, The Art Critic (1919-20)

As the leader of the Dada movement in Berlin, this satirical piece of art stood as a testament to the superficiality of the art world.

The piece is a photo collage made up of a series of magazine and newspaper photographs and includes some drawn elements.

Its iconography connotes that, much like the construction of a collage, art critics possess a cobbled-together knowledge of meaningless facts and do not truly understand the meaning of art.

Social realism 

On the other hais the use of art as a form of propaganda. 1930’S - 1950’s in the communist USSR.

• Realistic in style: clear, heroic, and idealized. Used genuine art techniques like symbolism to portray messages. Used flags, the national emblem, the hammer and sickle to inspire nationalistic pride within the viewer.

• Optimistic and idealistic in tone: showing progress, hope, and collective strength. (portraying leaders/communists as almost god-like figures above in authority as well as superior in identity)

AIM & Belief

• Educational in purpose: inspiring loyalty and faith in communism, the socialist purpose in unifying the people and inspiring nationalistic attitudes.

• to glorify socialism and the achievements of Stalin’s regime, portraying the USSR as a utopia of workers, farmers, and unity.

artwork

• Lenin in Smolny by Isaak Brodsky, 1930: portrays, 6 years after his death, his immortalization as the hard-working and humble servant of the proletariat that his public image had become.

• The artist himself, went on to become director of the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture only two years after completing this work, showing the incentivization for artists to glorify the Soviet Union’s regime and its figureheads.