Goodbye, Stalin

«A specter is haunting Europe – the specter of…?»
The project "Goodbye, Stalin" combines photographic and cultural-theoretical approaches. My colleagues and I began our work by critically analysing the two iconic motifs of late Stalinist paintings. This research evolved into a series of photoreportages (conducted in Ukraine, Poland, France, and Germany) and contemporary re-enactments of the original motifs. The result is an expanding archive of visual materials, currently being organised into a publication. Artists and researchers are contributing to this process, offering interpretations and deconstructions of the selected motifs and materials from the perspectives of various research fields.
The first results of the project were presented in the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste in Munich (2024 – 2025). The exhibition "The Only Possible Story" operated as an open research laboratory, presenting photographs, texts, and archival materials. It explored the political and cultural positioning of the artworks, spanning from the the late Stalinist period to the present day. How and in which terms can the art of the Stalinist period be described? What cultural and aesthetic dominants defined Stalinist ideology, and how did they influence and translate into other social spheres? And what ghosts of the past do these dominants resurrect (if they ever disappeared at all)?