Cheerful Post-Modernism

No compliment today is as manifestly out of fashion as the determination that an artist's work is 'prophetic'. However, no more suitable characterization exists for that which is most conspicuous to the contemporary viewer of the works from Milan Kunc's "Ost-Pop" series (1977-1979): they foretell the evolution which has been taking place up until recently on a worldwide scale and which has brought about the diffusion of everyday Western and Eastern sign. The opening of Eastern European politics, industry and media in recent years has produced a quaint and aesthetically charming visual environment. Against the background of well-preserved 19th-century townscapes, this environment is now providing the scene for a clash between outmoded socialist status symbols and the continually increasing number of signs of Western commercial product culture. One cannot help feeling that this is due to the political decisions and events which shook the former power structures of Eastern Europe.

The series by Milan Kunc which I referred to (and which came into being fourteen years ago) shows, however, that the newly-developing trends which correspond to it were not brought about by the subjective decisions of one political or artistic personality, but have their source in the logic of sym bols themselves, in their immanent play between affinities and differences. The artist is capable of discerning this logic, thus lending a prophetic dimension to his work. In his paintings, objects, photocollages and installations from the "Ost-Pop" series, Kunc intermingles the signs of the Western commercial world (such as a Coca-Cola bottle, a McDonald's hamburger, or television skits) with Soviet and Chinese symbols of the hammer and sickle, red stars and flags, pictures of ardent Communist Youth members and socialist collective farmers, or symbols of the Moscow Olympic Games.