One hundred years after the 1917 Soviet revolution in Russia, two baffling museum exhibitions attempt to recast one of the bloodiest regimes in human history in a positive light. “Revolution Every Day” at the Smart Museum and “Revolutsiia! Demonstratsiia! Soviet Art Put to the Test” at the Art Institute take different approaches to their subject, but neither pays much more than lip service to the millions of victims of the historical period these shows celebrate.
Exhibit organizers Devin Fore and Matthew Witkovsky quote Walter Benjamin in their introduction to the exhibit catalogue, saying that the Soviet Revolution was “one of the most grandiose mass-psychological experiments ever undertaken in the gigantic laboratory that Russia has become.” But almost nowhere throughout this encyclopedic ode to the era is there acknowledgement of the many victims of that experiment. The curators’ aim is stated thus: “Permitted to inhabit its own artifactual temporality, the artwork drifts out of phase with the historical parameter of political exigency and enables alternative accounts of Soviet culture on this centenary occasion and into the future.” The trouble is that no amount of theorizing can wash away the blood of the millions murdered by that “culture.”
Through 1/14/18: Tue-Sun 10 AM-5 PM (Thu till 8 PM) Smart Museum of Art 5550 S. Greenwood 773-702-0200smartmuseum.uchicago.edu Free
“Revolutsiia! Demonstratsiia! Soviet Art Put to the Test” Through 1/15/2018: Sun–Wed and Fri-Sat 10:30 AM–5 PM, Thu 10:30 AM–8 PM Art Institute of Chicago 111 S. Michigan 312-443-3600aic.edu $25, $19 students, seniors ($5 discount for Chicago residents) Free kids under 14; free for Illinois residents Thursdays 5-8 PM
