Ukraine's Dizzying, Hyper-Intricate Mosaics
Through Soviet-era propaganda art, vestiges of communism still remain.
Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union more than 25 years ago, but vestiges of communism remain. On streets across the country, the faces of industrious peasants, inventive engineers, and pioneering astronauts still beam from propaganda mosaics.
- Yevgen Nikiforov01Yevgen Nikiforov documents more than 1,000 mosaics and other monumental public artworks in his book *Decommunized: Ukrainian Soviet Mosaics*. The photographs depict an idealized, futuristic vision of Soviet life that mesmerizes Nikiforov—no matter how short it falls from reality.
- Yevgen Nikiforov02Artists in Soviet-era Ukraine had trouble earning a living unless they joined the Union of Artists, a state-mandated organization established in 1957. It pushed work promoting communist ideology, depicting Soviet citizens as physically fit workers who raised families, forged steel, and even mastered atoms.
- Yevgen Nikiforov03Artists who complied were handsomely rewarded, earning as much as 1,000 Soviet rubles for a bus stop mosaic made of tiny pieces of ceramic and glass—a fortune when many Ukrainians made less than 100 rubles a month—or 6,000 for a large panel.
- Yevgen Nikiforov04Some might dismiss these works as propaganda, but Nikiforov points to mosaicists like Valeriy Lamakh and Alexander Dubovik, who incorporated subversive, abstract elements from their private painting into public projects.
- Yevgen Nikiforov05"The strongest monumentalist artists did not merely illustrate what the party told them in these mosaics," he says. "They communicate basic ideas that outgrow the propaganda, and that’s why they are still interesting."
- Yevgen Nikiforov06Nikiforov spent three years traveling some 22,000 miles through Ukraine by car, train, and bus to document as many mosaics as he could. Most had been created between Stalin's death in 1953 and the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, and had since fallen into disrepair.
- Yevgen Nikiforov07The photographs raise deeper questions about how to deal with the controversial artistic heritage of the past: When does propaganda become art? If it is art, is it worth protecting? And is public space really the best place to display it?
- Yevgen Nikiforov08It seems some Ukrainians think the answer is no: Nearly 50 mosaics and other works, some featuring Soviet iconography like red stars or hammers and sickles, have been removed or destroyed since Nikiforov photographed them.
- Yevgen Nikiforov09But hundreds more remain—public reminders of a troubling era that ended more than a quarter-century ago.
Comments
Back to top
Laura Mallonee is a writer for WIRED covering photography. ... Read More
TopicsAMP Stories
North Korea in Videos: Inside the World's Most Secretive State
In late November, I had the opportunity to visit North Korea for a rare peek inside the most secretive country on Earth. All foreigner-oriented tours display a carefully managed, intentionally curated side of the country; with no opportunity for cross-examination, such visits don’t facilitate a journalistic treatment of life in North Korea. But the trip was fascinating nonetheless, full of revelations both sobering (kindergartens adorned with graphically anti-American murals) and mundane (people smile when smiled at). In this gallery, brief iPhone videos from Pyongyang offer windows into North Korea. No attempt is made to read the tea leaves or separate truth from stagecraft; the interpretation is up to you.
Jeffrey Marlow
Barcelona Street Art
There’s such a vast gulf of difference between the random kid who spray paints a cariacture of his fattest teacher with visible stink waves oscillating off of her on the side of his elementary school and the amazing graffiti murals of some of the best street artists that it’s sometimes hard to remember that they’re […]
John Brownlee
Canada Has Nicer People and Nicer Metro Stations
Check out the unique art and gorgeous architecture of the Montreal Metro.
Taylor Glascock
The Amazing Murals Created by Facebook's Artists-in-Residence
Drew Bennett was enjoying Dolores Park one weekend, hanging out with some friends, when his phone rang. Mark Zuckerberg, the caller told him, would be at his studio that afternoon. So Bennett left his friends, hopped on his bike, and pedaled across San Francisco to the Dogpatch, down near the bay. He didn’t expect the […]
Cade Metz
Inside the Hunt for Russia's Most Notorious Hacker
A mysterious cybercriminal deployed an invincible botnet to steal a fortune from US banks. Then the FBI discovered what else he was after.
Garrett M. Graff
Wikipedians Believed AI Would Come and Go. They Were Wrong
In a world of AI Overviews, Wikipedia usage declines. But the real loss may be far more existential than website traffic.
Richard Cooke
You Probably Aren’t Going to Get the Plague
The death of a lab worker in Russia has authorities looking at whether plague played a role. Even if it did, though, the odds of it spreading are very low.
Emily Mullin
Please Let the Internet Die
Online spaces are captured by oligarchs and saturated with slop—and they’re exacerbating humanity’s worst impulses. It’s time to start over.
Miles Klee
They War-Gamed Dimming the Sun. It Went Even Worse Than You Think
Solar geoengineering could buy humanity time against climate change—or trigger a dangerous new arms race. A first-of-its-kind simulation offered a glimpse of what happens when geopolitics takes the wheel.
Karl Mathiesen
You Finally Got a Wikipedia Page. Then It Vanished
Every day, Wikipedia biographies of living people are flagged for deletion because the subjects are not “notable” enough. How do these poor souls take the news?
Duncan Fyfe
The Man Behind a West Bank Telegram Channel Trying to Keep Palestinian Drivers Safe
With no accurate Big Tech mapping app to help him, Anas Hattab launched a Telegram group to get himself home at night. Now nearly 350,000 Palestinians rely on it to navigate the occupied West Bank.
Lama Rabah
What the US Movement Against Data Centers Can Learn From Everywhere Else
Paris Marx, author of Hyperscale, has been tracking global data center development for years. The US has a lot to learn from what’s happened everywhere from Ireland to New Zealand.
Molly Taft
Comments
Back to top