AWANGARDA, TOTALITARYZM, GLOBALIZACJA: WSPÓLNE DOŚWIADCZENIE? WYBRANE ZAGADNIENIA SZTUKI XX WIEKU NA UKRAINIE I W POLSCE

The text constitutes a reference to the article on applying social realism discourse in pop-art and modern popular culture (“Ars inter Culturas” 5 (2016): 209-239) and an elaboration by means of including Ukrainian art. It reminds about Ukrainian artists’ contribution to the development of the avant garde of the first half of 20th century and social realism ideas of involvement, “growing of art into” life as well as its presence in various areas of social practice. It also recalls the mediatory role of Władysław Strzemiński between Russian and Polish avant garde. Furthermore, on the basis of examples the author analyses formal strategies adopted from avant garde by the output of social realism, points to iconographic patterns of Ukrainian works from which Polish artists got inspiration according to their programme and critics’ recommendations. Also, differences resulting from the relations between patternmutation are important, as well as the duration of the doctrine which was in force from the first half of the 30s to the end of the 80s of the 20th century in Russia while in Poland in the years of 1949/50-1954/55. In both countries, it had important but different consequences, which results in different attitudes to realism as a general artistic strategy. Contemporary communication and globalisation processes have led to standardisation of visual language also in post-soviet countries, and internet memes play a significant role in it. In the world of the Internet, the elements of social realism discourse become memes detached from old meanings, lose their historical and political sense, become an element of entertaining exoticism which enhances forgetting about an oppressive character of the doctrine which, especially in Ukraine, has led not only to the exclusion but also to the extermination of artists.