Tag: painting

Southeast Asia

Leang Seckon: After the Khmer Rouge

On 7 January 1979, the Vietnamese Army invaded Cambodia – sweeping from power the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge. While both were ostensibly Communist states, relations between these neighbours had dramatically deteriorated due to the stream of Cambodian refugees into Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge’s repeated forays into border towns, where residents were massacred. The Vietnamese occupation would last for another ten years. Yet … Continue reading Leang Seckon: After the Khmer Rouge

espionartLeave a comment
caribbean

The Billboard Art of Revolutionary Grenada

The dreams of the Grenada Revolution were crushed in October 1983 by a quick succession of dramatic coups, starting with a power struggle between competing factions of the People’s Revolutionary Government. Maurice Bishop, the popular leader of the 1979 socialist revolution and subsequent Prime Minister, was first placed under house arrest, after a takeover by his […]

Continue reading The Billboard Art of Revolutionary Grenada

espionart1 Comment
Europe

When the Berlin Wall Came Down in Iceland

Since the night the wall came down – in November 1989 – pieces of the Berlin Wall have travelled far and wide. Over forty countries now host sections of the wall, from Italy and the Vatican to Singapore and South Africa. Along Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, several sections face out onto the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in an installation arranged by the … Continue reading When the Berlin Wall Came Down in Iceland

espionartLeave a comment
USA

The Not-so-Secret Art of the CIA

The above photograph, by American artist Taryn Simon, appears innocuous, even banal, at first. It shows two modern paintings hanging on bare white walls, cordoned off by limp rope barriers, while harsh fluorescent ceiling lights cause their reflection to bounce off the glossy laminate floor. But the photograph instantly appears more enticing and enigmatic when one reads the caption, indicating that it was taken at … Continue reading The Not-so-Secret Art of the CIA

espionart2 Comments
Africa

The Art of Revolutionary Ethiopia

The arrest of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia on 12 September 1974 marked the end of almost a thousand years of rule by the Solomonic dynasty, a royal family claiming descent from the biblical King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Haile Selassie’s deposition has been described as the culmination of a “creeping coup”, following a decade of protests against the Emperor, often led … Continue reading The Art of Revolutionary Ethiopia

espionartLeave a comment
Australasia

Maori Art of the Nuclear Mother

Known as ANZUS, the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty was signed in 1951. This military alliance was one of several entered into by the United States in the early 1950s, as part of its attempts to prevent the international spread of communism and to prepare for the possibility of armed conflict with the Soviet Union. Some thirty years later, as relations between the … Continue reading Maori Art of the Nuclear Mother

espionart1 Comment
Africa, middle east, Southeast Asia

North Korean Murals from Namibia to Syria

Espionart previously explored a string of patriotic sculptures built in Africa by Mansudae Overseas Projects, the international division of the North Korean state-run Mansudae Art Studio. This propaganda-for-hire is part of an alliance between North Korea and several African nations that dates from the 1960s, when the secretive Asian regime provided material assistance in their struggles for independence against European colonial powers. Mansudae’s projects have proved … Continue reading North Korean Murals from Namibia to Syria

espionart1 Comment
Report

Painting the Red Plague

1956 was a heady year of protest against the repressive Communist governments that controlled much of Central and Eastern Europe. The most famous uprising of that year is the Hungarian Revolution, a nationwide rebellion that was brutally suppressed by invading Soviet forces. Espionart has previously explored this landmark Cold War episode by looking at József Jakovits’s poignant biomorphic sketches, which chronicled the revolutionaries’ fight against … Continue reading Painting the Red Plague

espionart1 Comment
Report

Art in Defence of the Rosenbergs

The execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg at sundown on 19 June 1953 was one of the darkest moments in recent US history. The married couple were the only American civilians to be put to death for espionage-related activity during the Cold War, after they were convicted of passing top secret information to the Soviets. Their deaths left their two young sons orphaned. It was … Continue reading Art in Defence of the Rosenbergs

espionart2 Comments
Featured Artist, Report

An Ambiguous Portrait of Stalin

Anyone who has watched the 2017 satirical movie The Death of Stalin will have a darkly humorous although roughly factual understanding of the events of 5 March 1953, when the Soviet dictator finally met his end. After 3 decades in which ‘Stalinism’ had increasingly dominated all aspects of political and cultural life in Russia and the wider Soviet Union, it would take the country many … Continue reading An Ambiguous Portrait of Stalin

espionartLeave a comment