This Daily Mail article delves into the bewildering occurrence of artistic copyright violation - in which the violator was actually ISIS. Artist Brian McCarty is known for his photography depicting children reactions to war using dolls and figurines posing in an actual war setting. One of his pictures showed a Cinderella dolls with missiles about her head. McCarty was notified by a copyright organization that his image had been stolen and altered to be used as a recruitment image for ISIS. This is absolutely shocking to me, that via social media (such as Twitter in this case) quite literally anyone is able to take advantage of any image without the knowledge of who ever ha shared it.
This ties into the second journalistic article here, centering around the change in tide centered around Socialist Realism. The use of the photography in the first article essentially manipulated it into recruitment propaganda for its organization - similar in many way to the way that Socialist leaders of the Soviet Union in the mid 19th century would commission already known artists to paint idealistic paintings to persuade the minds of the workers. This in itself is a (slightly) more subtle form of propaganda for the movement of Socialist reign in the Soviet Union. The question about the revival of Social Realism and whether or no tit is tainted or it is actually a part of Russian history that must be commemorate and shown is an interesting one. At first I think that in the case of the ISIS advertisement on Twitter and who that would never go down as something to be commemorated in history as something artistic in any way. However, there are many differences between these two forms of propaganda. The first is the most obvious - the use of technology. Because of the easy access of social media websites, the artist McCarty was not commissioned for this work, rather stolen from. The difference between these two are also the form. While both are essentially advertisements, the Social Realism seen in the exhibition “Soviet Sport” depicts an entire social and political stage in across a country, and is also paired with incredible skill in painting- these paintings are often huge and are always of beautiful realistic skill. While I do not consider myself a fan of these forced commission works intended to benefit their rulers, I very much agree that these paintings demonstrate a huge part of Russian history as well as represent very well known artists and their skills. I think that Social realism deserves appreciation on an artistic and historic level, not praise for message of circumstance.
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