Public Programs
All programs are free and open to the public.
Lecture and Discussion: Yevgeniy Fiks: Post-Soviet Without Shores
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
LECTURE, Paley Lecture Hall, 5:00 PM
Introduction by Temple Gallery guest curator Stamatina Gregory
Russian-born Yevgeniy Fiks discusses the influence of text and politics on his art, which faces head-on the Post-Soviet dialog in the West. Fiks draws influence for many of his politically poignant works from books with projects such as Lenin for Your Library? in which the artist sent V.I. Lenin’s Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism to 100 corporate libraries, documenting and archiving the responses to his mailing. A later project, Ayn Rand in Illustrations, attempts to add a visual component to three of the author’s major books: We the Living, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. Join the Libraries and Temple Gallery, Tyler School of Art as this intriguing artist shares the process and product of his work.
DISCUSSION, Temple Gallery, 12th and Norris Streets, 6:30 PM
Following his lecture, Yevgeniy Fiks will participate in a public discussion about his work and its relationship to art and politics, Cold-War legacy, and more. Students from Tyler School of Art professor Philip Glahn’s Topics in Contemporary Art course will lead the discussion.
Yevgeniy Fiks: Post-Soviet Without Shores is supported in part by the Friends of Temple Gallery, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Temple University Libraries.
Gallery Talk: Red Scare and Blacklists: Communism and the Arts
Friday, October 8, 12 - 1 pm
Temple Gallery
Take an in-depth look at Yevgeniy Fiks: Communist Conspiracy in Art Threatens American Museums with Dr. Gerald Silk, Chair of the Art History Department of Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Dr. Silk will discuss some of the historical figures, events, and artists Fiks refers to in this exhibition, including Congressman George Dondero's condemnation of Modern Art and Communism, the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the treatment of political art by museums in relation to the art historical canon, and individual artists such as Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Diego Rivera, and Joseph Kosuth. Audience members are invited to participate in discussion.
Image: Detail from Yevgeniy Fiks, Stalin's Directive in Modern Art, 2010
Dr. Gerald Silk has written widely about modern and contemporary art and has curated and lectured internationally. He has a particular interest in art and politics and in censorship, controversy and the arts, including editing an issue of Art Journal entitled "Uneasy Pieces: Controversial Works in the History of Art, 1830-1950" and authoring book chapters such as “Censorship and Controversy in the Career of Edward Kienholz," in Suspended License: Essays in the History of Censorship and the Visual Arts, and “’Il Primo Pilota’: Mussolini, Fascist Aeronautical Symbolism, and Imperial Rome,” in Donatello Among the Blackshirts: History and Modernity in the Visual Culture of Fascist Italy.
Red Scare and Blacklists: Communism and the Arts is supported in part by the Friends of Temple Gallery, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Temple University General Activities Fee.
Communist Tour of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
October 15, 2010, 5:30 pm
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Free with museum admission*
*free museum admission for Tyler School of Art students with ID
A performance by artist Yevgeniy Fiks, taking the form of a tour of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's permanent collection, uncovers connections between Modern artists and the twentieth century Communist movement. Meet in Gallery 161, first floor (Resnick Rotunda), at the entrance of the Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries.
This program is supported in part by the Friends of Temple Gallery, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We would like to thank Adelina Vlas, Assistant Curator for Modern and Contemporary Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, for her support.
Communist Conspiracy in Art Threatens American Museums Film Series
In conjunction with Communist Conspiracy in Art Threatens American Museums, we'll look at three different genres tied to Communism and the Cold-War themes: pro-Soviet films from the early 1940s, Red Scare films from the 1950s and 1960s, and recent works by filmmaker Jim Finn. All screenings will take place at Temple Gallery, Tyler School of Art, at 12th and Norris Streets, Philadelphia and begin at 6 pm.
Monday, September 20
Mission To Moscow (Michael Curtiz, 1943, 123 minutes)
Based on the memoir of the U.S. ambassador to Russia, Joseph H. Davies, this controversial drama was produced at the request of Franklin D. Roosevelt in an effort to drum up support for the Soviet Union during World War II. The US and the USSR were comrades during the fight against Hitler and Mission to Moscow is a fascinating look at early American-Soviet relations.
Image: Mission to Moscow still courtesy of Warner Bros.
North Star (Lewis Milestone, 1943, 108 minutes)
Criticized when it was released in 1943 as being a pro-Soviet propaganda film, North Star is a war film about the resistance of Ukrainian villagers, through guerrilla tactics, against the German invaders of Ukraine. The film was rereleased in 1957 under the title of Armored Attack with several scenes deleted including idealized portrayal of Soviet collective farms and references to the 1956 Hungarian Uprising.
Monday, October 4
Introduction and discussion led by Dr. Gerald Silk, Chair, Art History, Tyler School of Art
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956, 80 min)
Bizarre behavior stirs up trouble in a small California town when people suspect that there may be human clones living amongst them. When released in 1956, this film was widely viewed as a covert indictment of McCarthyism.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964, 94 min)
Setting the stage for an impending nuclear Armageddon, this classic black comedy brilliantly skewers the nuclear age and takes passing shots at numerous Cold War attitudes.
Image: Invasion of the Body Snatchers still courtesy of Allied Artists.
Monday, October 18
Select Films of Jim Finn
Introduction and discussion led by Paul Swan, Professor of Film and Media Arts, Temple University
La Trinchera Luminosa del Presidente Gonzalo (Jim Finn, 2007, 60 min)
La Trinchera Luminosa del Presidente Gonzalo is a recreation of one day at the Canto Grande prison, following women guerrillas in their morning marches to their bedtime chants. "...A crypto-retro-Marxist faux-documentation of one day in a Peruvian women's prison populated by Shining Path Maoists, Trinchera has the flattened feel and relentless tempo of a long-lost artifact of low-tech propaganda... its compulsive ambition only furthers its enigmas." Ed Halter, VILLAGE VOICE
Jim Finn, still from La Trinchera Luminosa del Presidente Gonzalo, 2007
The Juche Idea (Jim Finn, 2008, 62 min)
This experimental satire examines what happens when a South Korean video artist sojourns into a North Korean art residency to breathe new life into that country's flagging, propaganda-driven movie industry. Believing that cinema can prop up North Korea's Juche (pronounced choo-CHAY) idea of self-reliance, mad dictator Kim Jong-Il pulls out all the stops to help the young émigré produce appropriate films.
This film series is supported in part by the Friends of Temple Gallery, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Temple University's General Activities Fee. We would like to thank Swank Motion Pictures, Inc. and Video Data Bank for their assistance.
Program Locations
Temple Gallery
Tyler School of Art, Temple University
12th and Norris Streets, first floor
Philadelphia PA 19122
(215) 777-9144
Lecture Hall
Paley Library, Temple University
Lower Level
1210 Polett Walk / West Berks Street
Philadelphia PA 19122
(215) 204- 8231
Philadelphia Museum of Art
26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, PA 19130
(215) 763-8100
Temple University maps are available for download at: www.temple.edu/maps/documents/TUMain_map.pdf