Zuzana Stefkova

In her May 20th talk at Northwestern University, Zuzana Stefkova provided an overview of Czech Republic and Slovakian art. Serving as a curator at the Center for Contemporary Art in Prague, Stekfova discussed the work of her native artists and how they use the region’s struggle with Communism, Democracy, and ideological shifts as the launching points for their work.
Stefkova began her lecture with defining political art. While political art is multi-faceted and varied, she said the common threads were: work that furthers a message/underdog social movement, deals with politics, addresses authoritative powers, and is socially conscious. She then defined political art more plainly, stating that it is art about social issues from a critical standpoint. Because of recent political changes in Central Europe, political artists have done a wide-variety of work in response.
She spoke of the type of art being made by her countrymen and women under different reigns. In the Socialist years of the Czech Republic, art and politics were to be separate. “Politik-um,” an exhibition in a Prague castle spoke to the Socialist mentality of separation, now presenting propaganda and political acts as art. The show, due to its proximity to the Head o State, was forced to close early so as to not represent that the entire nation also shared this anti-German sentiment. This show argued the need for art-for-art’s-sake. For while politically-natured, the artists were able to use even the most oppressive of subject matter to express their artistic concepts.
As much of the work is in political response to oppressive governmental ideals, and because there is strength in numbers, artists groups are commonly found doing the most socially-engaging work in Central Europe. Stefkova spoke of several, but the most memorable was Pink Tank, who painted a World War II monument (a tank) pink. Immediately after they painted it, the government countered and painted it back to its rightful green color. But not long after, people from outside of the group painted the tank pink again. While painting a tank pink obviously speaks to the want for military violence to be out of the public eye, it also argues for the want for art to very much be in the public eye.
She presented the works of David Cerny, whose projects blur the lines between art, politics, pranks, and activism. In one of his pieces, he appropriates crude objects to become the countries comprising Central Europe. A slab of salami adorned in Hungarian-colored ribbons was used for Slovakia, while a squat-toilet subbed for Bulgaria.
While the work she presented was very influential and exciting, Stefkova did finish the lecture with some fears of the possible downfall of Central European political art. Because this art scene has seen many changes, and so, too, has seen much publicity, she fears people may use political art purely to gain profits. She is also fearful of the manner in which the art functions. She believes art that tries to convert people may be just as bad as the oppressive government that the artists have been living under. And finally, she sees that a lack of independence may at some point force a stopping of this important art production.