How they made us believe their truths: Monumental art in public spaces before and after the fall of communism (the case of Slovakia)

• Authors: Sabína Jankovičová , Magda Petrjánošová
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper is concerned with monumental art in Slovakia before and after the fall of Communism in 1989. Generally, art in public spaces is important, because it influences the knowledge and feelings the people who use this space have about the past and the present, and thus influences the shared social construction of who we are as a social group. In this article we concentrate on the period of Communism and the formal and iconographic aspects that were essential to art at that time. We also look at the political use of art-the ways in which explicit and implicit meanings and ideas were communicated through art to the general public. We touch also on the present situation regarding the perception of “Communist art”. In the final section we discuss the state of affairs of the last twenty years of chaotic freedom in the post-socialist era. On the one hand, since there is no real cultural politics or conception for artworks in public spaces at the level of the state many artworks simply disappear, often without public discussion, and on the other hand, some actors use their political power to build monuments that promote their private political views.

Keywords

EN

monumental art; politics; Slovakia; Czechoslovakia; public space

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Human Affairs
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 21
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 367-381

Dates

published

2011-12-01

online

2011-12-25

Contributors

author

Sabína Jankovičová

• Slovak Union of Visual Arts

author

Magda Petrjánošová

• Slovak Academy of Sciences

References

• [1] Hushégyi, G. (2008). Výtvarné umenie, fotografia a architektúra (Visual Art, Photography and Architecture). In J. Fazekas, P. Hunčík (Eds.). MaĎari na Slovensku (1984–2004). Súhrnná správa. Od zmeny režimu po vstup do Európskej únie (Hungarians in Slovakia (1984–2004)). A General Report. From the Regime Change until the Accession of the European Union), pp. 457–466.
• [2] Šamorín: Fórum inštitút pre výskum menšín. Available at http://mek.oszk.hu/06000/06048/06048.pdf.
• [3] Hushégyi, G. (2011). Znaky v priestore - Naše nové monumenty (Signs in space - our new monuments). Slovak National Museum, Bratislava, Slovakia - Museum of Hungarian culture in Slovakia. Video document about the exhibition available at http://artycok.tv/lang/cs-cz/7525/znaky-v-priestore-%E2%80%93-nase-nove-monume.
• [4] Krekovičová, E. (2005). Mýtus plebejského národa (Mythos of a plebeian nation). In E. Krekovič, E. Mannová, E. Krekovičová (Eds.). Mýty naše slovenské (Our Slovak mythoi), pp. 86–93. Bratislava: Academic Electronic Press.
• [5] Richardson, J. (2007). Analysing Newspapers: An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/s13374-011-0037-1