/BIBLIOTEKA ART & POLITIKE (BAP)

A COLLECTIVE MONUMENT: SOCIALIST REALISM AS HISTORY AND METHOD

Edited by Raino Isto
Published by Pika pa sipërfaqe

A COLLECTIVE MONUMENT explores the development and significance of Socialist Realism, the artistic method that shaped the majority of postwar artistic production in Albania. Once regarded by Western art history as retrograde propaganda, Socialist Realism is now recognized as a major force in defining the global character of artistic production in the 20th century. Socialist Realism’s significance derives not only from its widespread adoption across the socialist world during the Cold War, but also from its relationship to antifascism, anti-imperialism, and the effort to produce a widely intelligible form of mass art that would serve as an alternative to capitalist visual culture. The development of Socialist Realism–its genesis, the diversity of its manifestations across the Soviet and non-aligned worlds, and the institutional structures it created–is a key element of modern cultural history. This volume collects major scholars and commentators on Socialist Realism from across the globe, gathering together texts that trace and interpret the method’s interactions and antagonisms with the historical avant-garde, other modernist-isms, and other forms of realist representation. These texts provide a groundwork for approaching Socialist Realism as a nuanced phenomenon, one whose legacies continue to shape politically engaged contemporary art made around the world.