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Australasian Network for Asian Art
Art History and Curatorship Seminar:
‘Changing the World’? Soviet Socialist Realism and Art in the Asia-Pacific
Alison Carroll Senior Research Fellow, Victorian College of the Arts
Thursday 3 April 2025, 5.30PM – 7.00PM AEDT
In Person: Level 4 Linkway, John Medley East (Building 191), The University of Melbourne
Zoom: Please register via Humanitix for the Zoom link.
Inquiries: simon.soon@unimelb.edu.au
Shen Jiawei (b. 1948). Standing Guard for our Great Motherland, 1974, oil on canvas, 189 x 158 cm. Coll: Long Museum, Shanghai. Image: courtesy of the artist.
In 1934, the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky explained the role of art was to change the world. This art was named Socialist Realism. A new book by Alison Carroll, Soviet Socialist Realism and Art in the Asia-Pacific (Routledge, 2025), evaluates if this Soviet art movement did just that in the Asia-Pacific. The book argues the art is both visually powerful and part of the history of the Asia-Pacific but, despite this, has been frequently overlooked and underestimated. It asks why this has been so – and gives reasons. The book is about art, but within the context of political and cultural history, focused mainly on China, Vietnam, the two Koreas, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, and also Australia. This talk will summarise this history over the last 100 years, explain why the usual initial response to Socialist Realism is dismissive, and put forward its many artistic and organisational achievements in our region, from Gorky’s time in the USSR to today.
Dr Alison Carroll has worked with art in Asia for many years as a curator, writer, academic and administrator. Her film series, A Journey Through Asian Art, was shown on ABC TV and her book The Revolutionary Century, Art in Asia 1900-2000 was published by Macmillan in 2010. She was founding Director of Asialink Arts, from 1990-2010, and is now Senior Research Fellow at the VCA. She was made a Member of the Order of Australia and received the Emeritus Medal of the Australia Council for this work. In her many years working in the region, she kept seeing art, both ‘socialist’ and ‘realist’, that reflects what she had seen in the USSR in the 1970s both as a young traveller and as a curator on assignment for the Australian Gallery Directors’ Council. It intrigued her then and continues to do so.
This seminar is co-presented with The Australasian Network for Asian Art (an4aa) and Asialink Arts & Culture
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