Unerasable Communism
An Exhibition by Károly Kelemen
The artist used propaganda photos, printed matter, and a special technique: the idyllic and heroic lie topos of the Soviet epoch in Hungary as the most effective bearers of the Communist idea of kitsch were painted by eraser and the pictures were destroyed by eraser as well.
Exhibitions
KELEMEN Károly
The artist used propaganda photos, printed matter, and a special technique: the idyllic and heroic lie topos of the Soviet epoch in Hungary as the most effective bearers of the Communist idea of kitsch were painted by eraser and the pictures were destroyed by eraser as well.
“In conformity with my artistic interpretation of secondarily produced reality, in my newest series of the socialist period I have used propaganda photos, printed matter, and a special technique: the idyllic and heroic lie topos of the Soviet epoch in Hungary as the most effective bearers of the Communist idea of kitsch are painted by eraser and the pictures are destroyed by eraser as well. The pictures, the ideas shown on them, the social practice, and the political as well as cultural general taste born by the ideas are the unerasable negative traces of the epoch. By painting and erasing them I wish to share the aesthetic experience of getting rid of these traces with the public.”
Károly Kelemen, painter