RED UTOPIA: communist party offices around the world. Red Utopia is a non-propagandistic search for what is left of communism, 100 years after the Russian Revolution.
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Jun 22, 2017 4:07 PM ET
RED UTOPIA: communist party offices around the world.
Red Utopia is a non-propagandistic search for what is left of communism, 100 years after the Russian Revolution.
About this project
Red Utopia Communism 100 years after the Russian Revolution – By Artist/Photographer Jan Banning
Red Utopia will be a beautifully executed art photo book documenting communist parties and their iconography in India, Italy, Nepal, Portugal and Russia, co-published by Nazraeli (US) and Ipso Facto (NL).
“I think it is terrific and even better than Bureaucratics — so diverse.” Elisabeth Biondi, independent curator and former Visuals Editor of the New Yorker about the Red Utopia photo series.
For me (Jan Banning) – a non-party progressive – Red Utopia is a non-propagandistic search for what is left of communism, 100 years after the Russian Revolution. The book will contain photos of interiors of communist party offices: “museums of a future from the past,” as one young Italian communist said. It also presents environmental portraits of officials and activists in five countries: India, Italy, Nepal, Portugal and Russia.
Already before the Russian Revolution of 1917, communism was a source of inspiration for idealists and revolutionaries who sought a more just society. The struggle between communism and capitalism was a mayor theme in recent history, certainly between 1917 and 1989.
In its practice of Real Socialism, the communist ideology turned out to be surely less than ideal; the Moscow trials in the late 1930s already shocked many believers; and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 seems to have delivered it a final blow. Neoliberalism, with its worshipping of the Free Market, now appears to be the only remaining ideology. Even most of the five remaining dictatorships of the proletariat are communist in name only. With the demise of this competing ideology, the need for capitalism with a human face has disappeared and the gap between rich and poor has widened in many countries. Since the crisis, which started in 2008, there has been a reappreciation of Karl Marx as a political economist and one may wonder: how dead is communism really?
Jan in Italy for Red Utopia
The book Red Utopia will be published in October 2017, around the time of the hundredth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. In that same month, the exhibition will have its opening in Museum De Fundatie, Zwolle (NL). Later on, it will travel to other museums (e.g. talks with the Museo di Roma in Trastevere are in an advanced stage). The book will contain (at least) 50 photos, size 24×30 cm (or bigger).
With Red Utopia I want to contribute to the debate on social politics and the division between rich and poor.
A selection from the series was nominated for the Zilveren Camera (best photo by a Dutch photographer) 2017. The Mondriaan Fund has contributed € 8,500 to the realization of this book.
After pledging your support, please help to spread the word about this project by sharing this link with your contacts.
Thank you very much for your help!
Jan Banning “Banning’s work carefully walks a line between document and art, banter and serious critical inquiry, showing a sophistication that marks him as one of the great portrait documentarians of our time.” Brett Abbott, former curator of the Atlanta High Museum of Art, about the Bureaucratics exhibition.
Jan Banning is a Dutch autonomous artist/photographer, based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. He gained worldwide recognition with his critically acclaimed photo book Bureaucratics (Nazraeli Press), edited by Martin Parr. Among his other well-known books are Comfort Women; Traces of War: Survivors of the Burma and Sumatra Railways; Down and Out in the South; and Law&Order.
Banning’s art work is in the collections of numerous museums, including the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; and the Centraal Museum in his home town Utrecht.
His photo series have been published in print and online media such as National Geographic, TIME, Newsweek, The New Yorker, Huffington Post, Slate, GEO (France, Germany, and International), l’Espresso, Days Japan, Sunday Times Magazine, The Guardian Weekend, and Vrij Nederland, among many others. For more information about Jan Banning, please visit: http://www.janbanning.com
Risks and challenges
If, for some unforeseen reason, the book will not materialize, you will of course receive all your money back.