Sunday, March 16, 2014
Chairman's (Omni Shoreham)
In the winter of 2009, following several months of intense political mobilizations in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, a group of local activists staged an unusual intervention. To commemorate a one-year anniversary of the largest post-war protests, they put together an peculiar live sculpture meant as a reenactment—and reinterpretation—of Delacroix' famous 19th century painting Liberty Leading the People. In the Bosnian activists' version, however, the painting acquired decidedly socialist undertones. A women personifying Liberty became surrounded by representative figures of socialist revolution: the worker, the miner, the farmer, the mother with a child, and so on. The sculpture, which for a few hours stood in front of the headquarters of the local government, presented an ironic play on both the socialist past and the promised democratic, and foremostEuropean future.
In what ways did this resurrection of a potent symbol of the 1830 French revolution, and the parodic return to the figures of the socialist cannon, provide a commentary on the promises of liberal and socialist modernity? What kind of a future was being reimagined on this cold winter day in reference to these past propagandistic images? Moreover, what did recourse to performance and political parody among Bosnian activists help illuminate about the spirit of the present times?
This paper examines these questions in relation to Reinhart Koselleck's claim that all futures are already past, but argues that not all pasts are as readily available for making a new future.
