The Death of Ideology

The Death of Ideology; 1982/2007

Redesigned, colour reinterpretation of a black and white Laibach poster from 1982.

In the upper part of the print are portraits of four anonymous mortals, representing the four, symbolic, pseudonymous members of Laibach named Eber, Saliger, Dachauer and Keller. The names are borrowed from the four regime painters of the Third Reich, practitioners of the ideological art of engineering human souls. The four portraits are inspired by the works (and methods) of the Austrian neo-expressionist painter Arnulf Rainer, and also by George E. Romero's 1968 film, "Night of the Living Dead". The film depicts contemporary consumer society as an epidemic of ideological cannibalism, in which the dead are never really dead, and return again and again among the living (or more specifically, to roam the department stores of capitalism).

At the bottom are portraits of three classic figures of Marxism: Marx, Engels and Lenin. In communist countries, the forth place for a portrait was reserved for a current local leader, such as Stalin, Mao Zedong or Tito. Since the poster was created shortly after Tito's death in 1980, this space was left empty, a black rectangle symbolically waiting for him to perhaps 'rise' from the dead.

In the centre of the picture stands the Laibach's symbol - the cross, which also adds up and evens out the differences.      

Silkscreen print on paper: 100 x 70 cm, limited edition of 65 in the series, numbered, signed, and stamped with an original Laibach seal.

All posters are suitably protected and shipped in a cardboard tube, separately from the other ordered items.