NET STEN
[NO WALLS]
SnakeAppleTree Gallery @ Chelsea Arts
A hundred years ago the Russian and European artists were making friends and working together, even when their governments hate and fear each other. It is not different now. Right-brained, creative people are united regardless of a delusion which occurs to left-brained, dogmatic people when the practicality regional management is replaced by xenophobic nationalism.
This art is about that. The style is a combination of graffiti style with the principles of an art movement called Suprematism, which evolved as a response to Cubism in the political environment of the early 20th century, a time of change when the foundations of a Modernist world were established and entrenched based on specific ideologies. We have witnessed for a century how the right wing and the left wing meet in the same place, in effect to become the same thing.
An influence for the title of this Exhibition, Net Sten, No Walls, was my living in the European city of Berlin a short time after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The history associating Communism, Fascism and 'Western' Democracy is the background thesis relating to the entrenchment of creeds and constructions of segregation and its impact on cultural harmony and wellbeing of We, The People.
"Suprematism. Not to be confused with supremacism. Suprematism is an early twentieth-century art movement focused on the fundamentals of geometry (circles, squares, rectangles), painted in a limited range of colours. The term suprematism refers to an abstract art based upon ‘the supremacy of pure artistic feeling’ rather than on visual depiction of objects."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suprematism
Limited colour palette for striking imagery, red, black white and cement-textures, aiming for 'the perfect harmonic' colour balance of 60% 30% 10% results in internationally identifiable symbolism inherent both in colour psychology and as a political tool.
We have seen historically Communism associating with colour red, a term historically used to describe communists. It is seen for example in national flags for the USSR (United Soviet Socialist Republics, and in Chinese Peoples Republic. * Soviet literally translates into English language as 'union' referring to Workers Unions, something which was dismantled in Britain along with corporate privatisation of national infrastructural assets providing water, electricity and public transport, under the national management by Margaret Thatchers right-wing Conservative party (the Blue party).
The architecture showed in the pictures is influenced by a combination of low-cost concrete Russian flats, the Khrushchevka's and high-rise version, the Brezhnevka ** and Chinese hi-rise apartments. Association of the theory and practise of Communism with 20th century communist architecture is inevitable.
In this exploration we are consciously making connections between the physical infrastructure, the social infrastructure of supply of necessary resources, and relating it to Maslow's hierarchy of needs provision of which form the foundation of any civilisation. Architecture becomes a physical symbol for the mechanics of community.
"For each their need; From each their ability."
Karl Marx, Marxism Social philosophy in eight words.
It is about the People
*
"The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War against the Kuomintang."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Party
"The concept of Two Chinas refers to the political divide between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC). The PRC was established in 1949 by the Chinese Communist Party, while the ROC was founded in 1912 and retreated to Taiwan after losing the Chinese Civil War."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Chinas
**
"Soviet architecture usually refers to one of three architecture styles emblematic of the Soviet Union: Constructivist architecture, prominent in the 1920s and early 1930s. Stalinist architecture, prominent in the 1930s through 1950s. Brutalist architecture, prominent style in the 1950s through 1980s."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_architecture
[Unfortunately I am having problem uploading pictures to blogger at this time. Pictures will follow.]
