Open AccessTransforming Alyosha into Superman: Invented Traditions and Street Art Subversion in Post-Communist Bulgaria
Author(s) -
Bozhin Traykov
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
transcultural
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1920-0323
DOI - 10.21992/t95d1b
Subject(s) - carnivalesque , subversion , superman , bulgarian , graffiti , politics , ideology , communism , aesthetics , everyday life , state (computer science) , art , sociology , media studies , art history , visual arts , political science , law , philosophy , linguistics , algorithm , computer science
On June 17th 2011 graffiti artists transformed the West side of the Monument of the Soviet Army (MSA) in Sofia, Bulgaria. MSA comprises part of a spatial environment where the invented traditions of the Bulgarian state interact and compete. The art of provocation challenges those invented traditions and opens up the potential for alternative readings and discursive practices of the past and present, contrary to the official political and NGO discourse. As such it subverts ideological symbols in a fashion similar to the carnivalesque. The graffiti art provides the potential to reevaluate, bridge and connect a violent past with an equally violent present, as well as pose questions about the future. It signifies the presence of history and politics in everyday life.