Crumbling Empire: The Power of Dissident Voices
New Exhibit
Content Advisory: This exhibit contains some graphic images and mature themes. These materials are presented in their historical context and are intended to foster education, reflection, and dialogue
On loan from the Wende Museum, Crumbling Empire: The Power of Dissident Voices is a poster art exhibit showcasing dissident perspectives from artists within the Soviet Union during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Art Behind the Curtain: Soviet-Era Masterpieces from the Ferris Collection
Beverly Hills High School teacher Tom Ferris and his wife, Jeri, got to know these artists and collected hundreds of their works during their regular travels to the Soviet Union. The Wende Museum acquired 234 of these paintings from the Ferrises, presenting a selection of them in an exhibition in 2019.
The Pritzker Military Museum & Library is excited to partner with the Wende Museum to bring sixty-nine of these incredible works of art to the Midwest, giving our audience a rare look behind the iron curtain to see these remarkable expressions of creative freedom and political dissent.
Content Advisory:This exhibit contains some graphic images and mature themes. These materials are presented in their historical context and are intended to foster education, reflection, and dialogue
The Art of Speaking Silently
No matter how authoritarian and restrictive, a political system can never completely silence voices of dissent. The 1950s in the Soviet Union witnessed the birth of an artistic dissident movement that continued to flourish in spite of relentless censorship and intimidation.
During the late 1980s, the period of Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reform), much of the accumulated countercultural energy found new room for expression. Thirty-eight Moscow-based artists, trained in poster design, used the opportunity to produce a unique series of paintings with a highly critical and at times ironic take on Soviet socialism.
These artists use, interpret, and appropriate symbols of power and oppression in the creation of artistic messages of liberation.
