Foreword
Maja and Reuben Fowkes

The exhibition ‘Revolution is not a Garden Party’ is envisaged as a tribute to the revolutionary spirit of the Hungarian Uprising and considers the resonances of social and political revolution in contemporary art.

As the first major popular rebellion against Soviet domination and the communist system in Eastern Europe, 1956 was a vital precursor of later revolutionary struggles. At the same time, it was part of wider geo-political shifts, such as the movement for decolonisation, and had cultural as well as political ramifications across Europe. In the history of art, the demolition of the Budapest Stalin Statue was the ultimate symbol of the decline of Socialist Realism. The truth about revolution is part of a contested history, a living process of rewriting and interpretation in which art takes a decisive part.

The exhibition consists of new and recent works that examine the global economic and political context against which revolutions take place, as well as the intersection between personal and artistic heritages of revolution. It expresses the sorrow of failed political struggles in the past and the future, and considers the shared experience of a communist past and the post-communist reality. Other concerns include the experience of revolutionary literature, the gendered images of resistance fighters in contemporary media, and the legacy of 1956 for the relationship of art and revolution.

Michael Blum, in his visionary monologue, interweaves quirks of history, biography and political theory against a changing urban backdrop to chart the 20 th century failures of communism, social-democracy, and capitalism. Touching on the popular image of mother and son in historical struggles, Nick Crowe’s film features a patriotic lament for loved ones killed during an uprising superimposed over the sounds of a fictional battle in an imagined sci-fi future. Igor Grubić’s multifaceted installation refers to the heritage of futurism, the revolutionary potential of the avant-garde and the interaction of personal and political histories. Sanja Iveković juxtaposes magazine images of female models promoting a terrorist style with similarly posed photographs of real life fighters from news reports. Gergely László and Péter Rákosi explore the popular fascination with national revolutionary traditions and historical battle re-enactments. Through his specially compiled library that offers radical insights, case studies and relevant models for the subversion of globalised power, Nils Norman reminds us of the role of reading rooms for the historical working classes in the spread of revolutionary ideas. Adrian Paci compares the transfixing memory of the communist past in Albania with the contradictions of the post-socialist condition.

This publication brings together the artistic response to contemporary revolution represented by the exhibition, with new reflections on the relationship between art and revolution by theorists and art historians. Gerald Raunig marks out alternatives to the takeover of the state apparatus as the primary goal of revolutionary activity. Rejecting sequential or phase-based models of revolution, he argues that the “revolutionary machine emerges in the concatenation of its three components (resistance, insurrection and constituent power).”Benda Hofmeyr locates the significance of revolution not in its high drama and denouement, but in its transformation into a spectacle that provokes fervour in the minds of viewers. The revolutionary in art influences the “primordial feeling” that ensures humanity’s continuation on the path of progress, while “by effecting such a powerful affect” it can itself become an instrument of revolution. Reviewing the presumed divide between aesthetics and politics, Simon Sheikh asserts that the “revolutionary aesthetic is not just a representational act that supports revolutionary politics, but also the mode of address that revolutionizes aesthetics.” Chus Martinezmaintains that the Revolution is an event of such enormity that it exceeds human control or understanding, in an essay that examines ‘Revolution’ and ‘Garden Party’ as two opposing cultural idioms. Maja and Reuben Fowkeslook to anarchist thought for an alternative genealogy of 20 th century revolution and suggest parallels with the radical values and practices of contemporary art.

Another layer of interpretation and reflection is provided by the responses of curators Edit Molnár, Nikolett Erőss, Dora Hegyi and Beata Hock, and artists Tamás Kaszás & Viktor Kotun, János Sugár and Miklós Erhardt to individual artworks when the exhibition was first shown in Trafó Gallery Budapest. These responses aim to bring out the wide range of meanings and associations provoked by the art works, as well as to highlight the variety of experiences and understandings of revolution in the context of contemporary art.

A programme of special projects accompanies the exhibition, including a film screening on Socialist Memory: Documentary Approaches in Contemporary Art and a series of international symposia on Art and Ideology, Art and Documentary, Art and Revolution and Art and Memory. The SocialEast Seminars (www.socialeast.org) are organised by MIRIAD Manchester Metropolitan University and are held in conjunction with the exhibition in Manchester, Budapest and Zagreb 2006-7. In addition to this publication, further images and information are available on the exhibition website www.translocal.org/revolution