STAR CITY;

My apologies for my inactivity over the de-facto half term, i was pretty busy and as a result didnt get round to blogging.

On the tuesday i visited nottingham contemporary's new exhibition "Star City", which takes a look at art, design, politics and life under the iron curtain.
there were modern installations taking a retrospective look at communism alongside poster design, propaganda and and product design from the cold war years.
The exhibition was very similar to the COLD WAR MODERN exhibition that was put on at the V&A a year ago. The main difference being the cold war modern looked at and compared what was going on the other side of the iron curtain too. We saw the differences (and the startling similarities) between what communist russia was doing and what capitalist america was.

Star City, however, concerned it self purely with the communist perspective.
It should be said at this point that Communist art and design is by far my favourite area of art and design. My favourite pieces of designer are made by Alexander Rodchenko, so any opportunity to see a cold war exhibition is quickly snapped up.

I think the exhibition sheds light on the communist approach to design. The work has a recurring theme throughout it, most people who have visited the exhibition will now know that "SLAVA!" (Слава) means Glory!
What i think is good about the exhibition is that in most cases it is politically agnositic. It talks about the space race, it talks about communism and its competition with the west, but rather than focus on its downfall and its secrets, it takes the stance of retrospect and nostalgia. It represents communism's pursuit of utopia.