Soviet Silent Movie Posters

Joe Nolan — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 04:22:31 +0000

I’m not sure why it’s true, but it is: The most totalitarian regimes often produce some of the most beautiful art. Of course, when we’re talking about totalitarian regimes and art, we’re almost always talking about propaganda — usually the only kind that’s allowed to be produced.

While filmmakers in the old Soviet Union were busy breaking and re-making the rules of editing in the nascent cinema of the early 20th century, their colleagues in graphic design were matching their pioneering visions with bold, beautiful images that were often as memorable and impactful as the films themselves.

The Independent has the skinny on a new exhibition of the lost art that accompanied the development of Soviet silent movies:

This month, a new exhibition, Kino/Film: Soviet Posters of the Silent Screen, opens in London to commemorate their work, and also to launch 2014’s UK-Russia Year of Culture.

Striking graphic design was always emblematic of the former USSR, a country whose best artists were rarely subtle when they could be arrestingly bold instead.

The results were subsequently hailed as works of art in their own right, and the exhibition includes creations by brothers Georgii and Vladimir Stenberg (for the 1926 comedy Three Million Case, 1928’s Sporting Fever and 1929’s Death Loop) alongside, amongst others, Aleksandr Naumov’s Oil, and Yakov Ruklevsky’s revolution biopic October (both 1927).

These posters went on to attain classic status for reasons other than their stark beauty: though mass produced at the time, they were also quickly discarded. Few survived.

Read the full article and see all the full slideshow at the Independent.

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Art posts.

Happy Birthday, Syd Barrett

Joe Nolan — Tue, 07 Jan 2014 00:14:07 +0000

The legend of Syd Barrett continues to haunt the music of Pink Floyd and all rock that sounds remotely psychedelic. Today would’ve been Barrett’s 67th birthday if not for his untimely death in July of 2006. In honor of the legend and the man, here’s a fascinating excerpt from a remembrance in The Independent recalling Barrett’s 1975 visit to Abbey Road studios where his old bandmates were recording “Shine on You Crazy Diamond.”:

In June 1975, while Pink Floyd were recording the album Wish You Were Here at London’s Abbey Road studios, a portly, shaven-haired man arrived and stood quietly at the back, watching.

He appeared as the Floyd performed the song “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”. It contains the words: “Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun. Shine on you crazy diamond. Now there’s a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.”

At first, they didn’t recognise the man, whose head and eyebrows were shaved and who was apparently trying to clean his teeth by holding the brush still and jumping up and down.

But this was the “crazy diamond” himself: Syd Barrett, the subject of the song. He was the most famous “acid casualty” of his generation, and the writer of much of the original material of the group, from which he had been ejected because of his drug-induced eccentricities.

When Roger Waters saw his old friend, he broke down.

Read the full article at The Independent.

Here’s an exhaustive documentary about the man and his music:

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Music posts.

Joe Nolan's Insomnia » The Independent

Soviet Silent Movie Posters

Happy Birthday, Syd Barrett