Tag Archives: propoganda

Kentaur by Tamas Szentjoby

Posted on by

Still, Kentaur

Tamás Szentjoby, or St.Auby (he often changes his name in protest against the official art system), is a prominent conceptual artists in Hungary. He originally made the film Kentaur (Centaur) between 1973-75, but it was banned before the final version was completed. In 2009, a found copy was restored and digitized for the Istanbul Biennial. As you can imagine, I was thrilled to have the rare opportunity to watch a copy with English subtitles at the Ludwig Museum the other day.

Still, Kentaur

Kentaur consists of about 40 minutes of found footage from the Socialist era showing citizens going about their daily lives. Without context, it  is unclear why these 12 fragments of factory workers or men in coffee shops were filmed, but it certainly doesn’t make sense with Szentjoby’s voice-overs. Szentjoby wrote dialogues dealing with themes of work and money and power, co-opting the language and concerns of Socialist propaganda and turning it on its head.

 “-Don’t you think that whatever exists, is an incitement? That the tradition of efficacy nowadays is none other than the efficacy of tradition? But, we’re theoretically done with that.

-So?

-Maybe there’s some point in my saying it.

-You’re saying very little.

-Still, I hope it has an effect.

-So it’s all about efficacy.

-Doesn’t speech have an effect?

-Only if you’re saying forbidden thing. That’s how it liberates the unknown within us, and unleashes on us the unknown that lies inside. Alright now, Margit, I’m getting off now.”

Phrases ranging from the philosophical to the blunt become ridiculous, and are at odds with visual scene. In addition to being provocative, it can be quite funny.  It is obvious why it was banned. Today, I find the film interesting as a reaction to the Socialist government of the time, naturally, but perhaps also the underlying questioning of unending, mechanized work and its effect on the human spirit is still relevant.

 

Korea Report: Art+Politics=BAD

Posted on by

At least, it can stir up a lot of trouble for artists who wish to comment on North Korea.

Lovely, isn’t he?

With plenty of room for irony, some artists are highlighting the difference between the smiling pomp of North Korean state cultural institutions and the hunger and isolation faced by average North Koreans. They popped up on ArtCal Zine’s radar as well as the International Herald Tribune’s yesterday, and both artist’s works center around the concept of juche.

For our purposes, juche is a state ideology that emphasizes self-sufficiency and isolation, but all the people’s happiness with the ideology. One of its stated goals is ‘molding people ideologically as communists and mobilizing them to constructive action.‘ Somehow I don’t think these artists works would count as constructive, despite their use of juche motifs.
ArtCal reccomends the film The Juche Idea, saying “[it] delves into the isolationist state’s rich history of state-sponsored and propagandist film making (in the 1970s, Kim Jong published a treatise on cinema) and comes out with what appears to be a suite of shorter films strung along a playful meta-narrative of a South Korean video artist making work on a special North Korean residency program. Unlike so many contemporary artists who show nothing but naked contempt for such difficult topics, Finn approaches his with a unique humor and wit.”
##
Similarly, the ‘faceless’ artist Sun Mu was highlighted in the International Herald Tribune for the paintings that he has done since escaping from North Korea. Remaining unphotographed to prevent familial reprisals in North Korea, Mu has painted juche ideals so well that he was almost arrested because in South Korea they have a law against propaganda and didn’t understand the irony intended.
65
This reads and is titled, We are all happy children!, from a popular song.
34
The use of humor to empty juche images of significance is powerful, and hopefully understood in Korea and elsewhere.