MONTAGE IN SOCIALIST REALISM AS AN IMAGE OF THE TIMES

Abstract

The rhetoric of photography is, in a sense, unambiguous and of limited potentials since its visual message is anchored in the world of real phenomena and is confined to the referential boundaries of its own medium. It is, however, precisely this firm connection to its referent, the objectivity of photography, which suited the spirit of the times, because it supported realism, as the key aesthetic norm in the art of socialist realism. The role of the photographic picture was to document a utopian thesis which asserted that the socialist transformation of industry and society will bring about a transformation of the man as well. However, the montage techniques were necessary and readily available in the Yugoslav monumental ideological workshop creating a brave new world.