Valeri Barykin WAKE UP EARLY MORNING AND QUICKLY GET READY FOR WORK
Edward Hopper, Morning Sun.
Fascinating Q : Instead of haughtily asking “Well, so who culturally appropriated from whom?”, we progressively ask : So, who brothered the other's work?
~
Hopper's work is of A.D. 1952. At the same time, Generalissimus Stalin was still alive, as you can see him hanging on the wall. So it must have been prior to the Planetary Tragic Day of March 5, 1953, when The Machinist Of The Revolution ascended into Marxian-Leninian Nirvana, while schoolkids all over the world (uh, well, the world of Soviet Bloc) stood at attention listening the transmission from Moscow, Chopin's majestic Funeral March of Piano Sonata No. 2 in background (loop-forever mode), radiophonic Master Ceremoniae sobbing in between.
So, now it's up to you, Comrade : Which pic is the hen, and which is the egg ?
P.S.
No need to tell Amis how profound a painter Edward Hopper was, and how deep was+is his influence on modern visual arts (Ami arts in particular). This quickie indicates how weighty Hopper (and here: his Morning Sun) is, by the Gutenberg-2.0 measure of ref-count.
Barykin - in his metier, spoofing Soviet Agitprop while merging it with Amiland's pin-up aesthetics - is just brilliant.
Our glorious Party Organ of course took a benevolent, Lenin-Prize-grade look at Barykin's utterly funny and highly skilled work, here and here.
5/4/2016, 2:40 pm
Dedhedvedev
I like "The Waiting Room," by George Tooker (1959).
I think it signifies our unbounded enthusiasm for the inevitable arrival of The World of Next Tuesday.
5/4/2016, 5:32 pm
Comrade Stierlitz
I like our Architectural Komrades' invention of Brutalism:
Brutalist architecture is a movement in architecture that flourished from the 1950s to the mid-1970s, descending from the modernist architectural movement of the early 20th century. The term originates from the French word for "raw" in the term used by Le Corbusier to describe his choice of material béton brut (raw concrete).[1][2]British architectural critic Reyner Banham adapted the term into "brutalism" (originally "New Brutalism") to identify the emerging style.
Critics of the style find it unappealing due to its "cold" appearance, projecting an atmosphere of totalitarianism, as well as the association of the buildings with urban decay due to materials weathering poorly in certain climates and the surfaces being prone to vandalism by graffiti. Despite this, the style is appreciated by others, and preservation efforts are taking place in the United Kingdom.[2][14]
Anthony Daniels, a British author, physician, and political commentator, has written for City Journal that Brutalist structures represent an artefact of European philosophical totalitarianism, a "spiritual, intellectual, and moral deformity." He called the buildings "cold-hearted", "inhuman", "hideous", and "monstrous". He stated that the reinforced concrete "does not age gracefully but instead crumbles, stains, and decays", which makes alternative building styles superior.[15]
And just take a look at this!
Oh, you want to see inside?
5/4/2016, 7:13 pm
Comrade Biffinaditch
Crybully Mao
5/4/2016, 11:32 pm
Comrade Biffinaditch
Body talk.
5/5/2016, 4:03 pm
Genosse Dummkopf
Biff Henderson wrote:Body talk.
... and you certainly know it, adapted for Ersatz-Hillary, howgh ? :
(it's originally from wonkette, most likely also to see somewhere in our Kubic GULAG).
5/5/2016, 6:17 pm
Genosse Dummkopf
Comrade Stierlitz wrote:... our Architectural Komrades' invention of Brutalism ...
o yep. _That - driven to the extremes, as in your pics - was particularly sick.
Le Corbusier himself no dummkopf, yet he was full with "ideas" to "organize" the unwashed, by means of his architecture. I call such Comrades Controlchiki (sing. Controlchik), a private label for totalitarian mindset. (hard-leftists are Controlchiki par excellence - yet just a subgroup here).
LC was in direct touch with super-Controlchik's of XX century : Batyushka (Stalin) and Il Duce (Mussolini). Not so with Herr Hitler - b/c HH had his "own", the highly talented and creative Albert Speer (they inspired each other, mutually, and came up with monstrosities - e. g. Germania, the "New Berlin").
That "architect as New Man" (Sovyetskiy Chelavyek, Übermensch) and eager collaboration with the "New Power", for - literally, no satire - The Good Of The Masses and The Shining Future, that was Zeitgeist - around 1930. (that "service for The New" was not mindless - the initial 3-5 years in all three "New Powers" were an upswing, the Soviets from 1920, Fascisti from 1923, the Reich from 1933. After those initial 3-5 years, and power consolidated, the real terror (Soviets especially) started, and the horror of WW2 followed soon).
Concerning architecture (and visual arts, generally) : Fascisti, and even more so III. Reich turned to Rome/Hellenic antique - somewhat epigonal, yet with a truly human/humanistic basis ; the Soviets ("cut off the past!") plunged - especially in architecture - into a "race" with Amiland of yore (ye know : "overtake and surpass!"), not least in buiding high-rises, and soon perverted Ami's matured Art Deco & upcoming Modernism & inventive diverseness into that godawful mad-candy-maker "socrealist", uniform architectural "style", dictated as Party line.
Ask where, the f*ck, did Brutalism come from, and the only answer is "1984". Plus less than a handful "leaders", with sick taste/imagination, and a flock of parrots ("art critics" included), multiplying the horrorshow.
And back to LC : Corbusier, for sure, steered early in Controlchik architecture (for The Good, of course). Distinctive : his Plan Voisin of 1925. Concept & blueprints ready, LC shopped in Moscow to get it built - yet Batyushka said nyet. So LC took his blueprints and, ra-ta-ta-ta-ta, ran to Il Duce (dire di no). So, that monster remained on paper :
La petite différence . . .
Later, LC was a leader in establishing the plattenbau aesthetics, spilled (in its cheapest and shabbiest form) all over the Soviet Bloc.
And, not to forget, Corbusier for sure created also fine architecture - will post some bits below.
And here a heartwarming story : after a life not free of haughtiness and grandstanding, Le Corbusier spent the last years of his life in this austere box (3.66m x 3.66m x 2.66m), built after his plan, in the lucid Mediterranean sun over the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur :
Finally, there is a chapter in LC's life straight out of The People's Cube J ! Coming next.
5/5/2016, 11:38 pm
Ivan the Stakhanovets
THIS is art. I find it encouraging, and strangely...arousing.
5/6/2016, 9:54 am
Genosse Dummkopf
.
Around 1930 Batyushka (Stalin), with already 2,5 million (= the lower bound, the upper bound is 7,5 million) dead Ukrainians (quickie) under his belt, attained full grip on power. BTW, courtesy of useful idiot Mr. Duranty (Chief of Moscow's NYT-Bureau), the West was fully informed: Famine? What famine? See no famine, hear no famine, speak no famine.
So, Batyushka at all levers of power, and the waves of terror, started with Lenin-1917 and never ceased, were now intensified into full-amoc dimension over the next 9 years (with Yezhovshchina 1937-8 as the apex), and then, 1939, WW2 got priority, before terror. Also, with 1930, the big-scale GULAG system started (Byelomor Canal). At the same time - since 1930 - Batyushka played footsie with the West, and conversely. From far away, and with information outflow from Russia strangled, and with "agents of influence" installed via KGB all over the influential centers of the West, Communism™ & Soviet Paradise looked all hunky-dory.
And here, 1931, Batyushka declares a need for a Palace of Soviets, meaning Some Super Splendid Giga-Thingamajig for kinda Parlament. Of such magnificence, uppityness and shine as to make Amiland's architecture, from Sullivan to Mies van der Rohe, look small potatoes (ye know : "overtake and surpass!"). So, with BIG fanfare, a most Internationally Internationalised Glorious Contest for Comrades Architecturists is trumpeted, worldwide. Proposals & Drafts start coming in ! And right in the first row, guess who ? Yeah, got it - Comrade Le Corbusier !
The whole thing was rigged ab ovo, of course. Batyushka, the Greatest Whatever & Anything of all times, already had it in mind : a glorious Soviet New Man will be the winner, and that winner will have to crank out the petty details of Batyushka's Great Vision. Now, Corbusier's design was pretty elegant, apt, and outstanding. Yet, come 1932+33, a winner is picked - huh, a Sovietmensch, of course (highly talented Boris Iofan, whose likewise elegant original draft was pushed by Batyushka's demands, step by step, into monstrosity).
And ― of course! ― the "international" hullaballoo was just a Soviet propaganda shtick, nothing more. While the intellectual/architectual "world-progressivity" of that time, blindly adoring the Glory-on-Horizon, dreamt of building the New Wold, version-N, under the fatherly (hence 'Batyushka'!) leadership of Great Red Stalin.
Now, blueprints :
Le Corbusier, 1932 (for sure, an elegant design)
Iofan, 1931 (his original - no doubt, very elegant)
Iofan, enhanced on Batyushka's demand
Iofan, enhanced again
Iofan, more equally enhanced, uff
Iofan, totally enhanced, Batyushka now content
on top : Tallest Lenin Ever
so, no wonder that The People's Cube noticed the Historically Unprecedented Greatness as well as Glorious Further Usability of that nightmarish output of Sovietically Benighted Architectorators :
(link- uff, can't find, need re-education) (hah, here it is!)
And a closing post yet to follow...
5/6/2016, 3:26 pm
Genosse Dummkopf
.
Palace of Soviets addenda :
WPedia has a usable entry, including the particularly sordid cathedral chapter*. As for that "chapter", it's an obvious parallel to the timeless Mahometan practice (start with Al-Aqsa in Yerushalayim, and go through History until today's kuffar-oriented demolition & extermination going on in MENA). And while at that, note the hand-in-hand, continuous and reciprocal veneration of Western totalitarianisms of the 20th century and the modern Islamic totalitarianism rooted in the 1920's (founding of Muslim Brotherhood). A veneration clearly continued by Red Controlchiks after Y2K. (what's 'Controlchik' ? see here.)
* DISCLAIMER: No, I don't "bitterly cling to Cathedrals". I pessimistically cling to (seemingly degenerating, for now - since the very early 20th century ; despite many spellbinding technic/science related highlights) Western Culture, and Western Civilization.
a somewhat comico draft - based on Venice's Doge Palace plus kinda Traian Column of Rome
"overtake and surpass!"
& Communistic Skyscraping task for the 328(!) ft / 6,600(!) short tons Vlad-of-Iron !
towering over Moscow
towering over landscape (Q @ architecture buffs : What's that biggie, far away in the center ? Hint : Lomonosov)
main axis
just compare Germania (huge area of "old" Berlin to be razed, giving place to the "new")
Closing the Palace of Soviets story :
Construction actually started, giganto-foundation complete in 1939, and next (WW2!) ― ploughshares to swords! ― converted into tanks (1941). The place ― until 1931 the ground of a splendid Cathedral ― remained empty ; then (in 1958-60) a gigantoid swimming pool was built here. Only after the Evil Empire went to hell (1990-91), Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior was rebuild (stepwise, through 1991..92..94..97..2000).
Browsing other drafts of the 1931-contest, there is recurring Bombast, Pomposity, Gigantism, horrendous eclectic mashups borrowing from ancient Greece, Capitol Hill, Florence-style cupolas, concurring III. Reich designs (Germania!) etc.
(yeah, visit Germania! It has a classic canon as basic principle ― Hellenic, no less! ― and draws some beauty from it ; yet, in its crushing monumentality and out-of-human-scale bombast, it's frightening, and degrading a single individual to zero ; exactly the desired effect ― as the future belonged to The Collective, a central tenet of any Controlchik System, whatever its "color". & BTW, green is nowadays a well established member in this Historic Club.)
You can philosophize ‘til the cows come home about : What Satan of Misguided Aesthetics & Beelzebub of Controlchik-ity Mindset whispered into the heads of those, who delivered the most egregious Palace of Soviets drafts ?
Yet one thing is sure : none of them went that outrageously inhuman and dehumanizing as you see it in full-blown "Brutalism", and especially in its most repulsive "oeuvres".
Moscow, Cathedral of Christ the Saviour :
A. D. 1931
A. D. 2000
(and how come, ex-Commies permit rebuilding a church ? simple :
- Orthodox church has influence over a big part of "the Masses" ; ex-Commies need it, too.
- after all, many ex-Commies (likewise so many Commies of yore) are/were not raging beasts.
)
5/6/2016, 3:48 pm
Ivan the Stakhanovets
What a waste.
Think of the progress our Great Society could have made had there been openings in the College of Womyn's Studies, or African American Studies instead of frittering away this Comrades time studying architecture <spit>. Oh well, back to tending beets.
5/6/2016, 5:29 pm
Genosse Dummkopf
Ivan the Stakhanovets wrote:... "encouraging, and strangely...arousing."
Comrade 350% Productivity over the Norm ! ― and not to forget the Gender-thing, ja ?
(particularly, while speaking of "arousal", that dirty, sexist, rapist, racialist, imperialistic Appropriation from Femininity (Das Ewig Weibliche! Goethe!) by White Senile-Penile Producers Of Spermatozoa!).
<MultiKulti-ON>
Tractor in field - same as tank in battle ! (1942)
(men transported to the front, women to do men work)
(btw, it's pretty fine graphics (mho). visually dynamic, near subliminally emotion-laden, vivid space - dramatically subdivided, all immersed in open - and varied - space and breathable air, there are multiple "plans" (in the cinematic sense) - the close one, a middle one, and 2 far ones, and a (metaphoric) very far one , the scene tells quite a story - in shortcuts, and there is life in here - particularly the (and in the) two gals)
(then there is also agit, of course - the steel mill (and you think 5-year plans, and "further raising" diagram-curves), the various military equipment (and you think "motherland" and "victory"))
(and then there is also lie, of course, a little one : cute or not cute, a (Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Russian) gal wouldn't go tractoring in a (folklore) rubashka - those beautifully embroidered blouses/jackets ; and a bigger lie : the tractorette watches dutifully her course, wouldn't wave the train, passing by ? the guys whistling & shouting ? maybe the last feminae in their short life ?)
(and then this - it's 1942, yet the style is far from the - by then already calcified - "socrealism" ; instead, it clearly breathes the elegant and impressive aura of Art Nouveau, Russian variant - born at the very end of XIX century, and withering within some 8 years after the Bolshevik upheaval in 1917...) (and the two gals - of classical beauty, not those stiff socrealo prepackaged "heroines")
(such a tiny poster - and so much to see and feel and intuit...)
(Vietnam, today)
Poland - Magdalena Figur, top-Traktorette of PL (1952), DDR (Feminism-1950)
Workers and Peasants - Fight the "old", build new socialistic life !
DDR, Early field-cultivation - better crop per hectare ! (1952)
what difference, at this point, do you see ? :
(1929)
(around 1930)
and it wasn't just Tractors ! :
Women, onto steam locomotive !
and now ― exclusively for us here, kubistic, sexualistic, M-gendered beasts with libido-control the size of a sandkorn ― a special : How to win the Glorious Heart of a (cute) Comradette ? :
DDR, (1952)
Comrade Stakhanovtchik ! Onward, to 350% Norm in Productivity !
oh, those "breasts swollen with pride" ― see more! more! more! here.
5/6/2016, 6:06 pm
Ivan the Stakhanovets
Never have I met a comrade with a collection of such tractor porn...
Join us at tractor barn #2 after the shovels are cleaned and turned in for political discourse, singing of the marching songs, and perhaps a beverage or several. No ration card required for your first visit.
5/6/2016, 7:29 pm
Captain Craptek
[b]Ivan the Stakhanovets may have spoken too soon when he[/b] wrote:Never have I met a comrade with a collection of such tractor porn...
Join us at tractor barn #2 after the shovels are cleaned and turned in for political discourse, singing of the marching songs, and perhaps a beverage or several. No ration card required for your first visit.
5/6/2016, 9:48 pm
Genosse Dummkopf
Ivan the Stakhanovets + Captain Craptek wrote:... at tractor barn #2 ... singing the marching songs, and perhaps a beverage or several.
