ART
Party line
EVAN ANTHONY
By the time I left the Hayward Gallery, I felt about propaganda pic- tures the way that I should doubt whether at this late date, there can be anyone who has not heard some small whisper of the trials. and tribulations of the Arts Council while mounting this ex- hibition; the non-show at the Hayward (or not at the Hayward) is, by this time, history, and has been reviewed by a number of peo- ple who, having more influence than I, managed to sneak into a hidden room (with Tv cameras upon one occasion) and have seen the paintings that the Russians insisted be removed. Well, whatever your reaction to the Russians' holding the Arts Council by the — I mean, in the palm of their hands, we must accept that what is currently on view is what it is ideologically safe for us to see. Lissitzky's Proun room (in case you won- dered, it means 'for the new art'—it wasn't commissioned by a Mr and Mrs Proun) is now sealed, hidden away in the bowels of the Hayward; and decadent examples of non-ob- jective painting cannot share wall-space with Deineka's 'Defence of Petrograd', or Raksha's 'My Mother'. The whole incident seems too absurd to be true, but alas, true it is. More than it provokes either laughter or anger, it makes me feel rather sad : how awful it must be for a painter to be stranded in Russia today.
As for what is on show, I congratulate the organisers on their efforts—an attempt has been made to capture the spirit of the time, and if, despite the omnipresence of political Posters, agit-prop cartoons and photomon- tages, I found the presentation a bit dull, I think the rigidity of the show is unavoidable. It isn't only that it is difficult to re-heat a revolution, but the repetition of images and slogans inevitably has a deadening effect.
The theatre sets and the architectural models are an altogether livelier matter, some of them being ingenious and exciting. The lovely red Tatlin tower makes an im- pressive symbol of the exhibition. Lissitzky's set for I Want a Child, and Popova's turn- ing wheels and windmill set for The Magnanimous Cuckold show an originality that gives some sign of avant-garde activity in Russia after the revolution.
There are very few paintings in the show, and, fortunately, most of them are in- terspersed through the rooms of the gallery, among other items and make little impact. But eventually you come to a wall where there are three or four hanging in a row, and, well, the reaction is inescapable: everything you have heard about the prosaicness of Russian painting is true. I might suggest that the essential quality lacking in this exhibition is humour; but then if it were to be said that perhaps I have been subliminally affected by hearing of the Russians' censorial attitude to the show, I should have to concede that that did have something to do with wiping the smile off my face.
Previous page
