Leslie, Esther (2025) Lenin and the image in time. Crisis and Critique 11 (2), pp. 239-253. ISSN 2311-8172.
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Abstract
Lenin has been represented in photographs, film, paintings and in other modes. Beginning from some of the discussions about adequate portrayals of Lenin, whether in time-based or more ‘auratic’ media, the politics of aesthetics and concomitant aesthetics of politics is here investigated as standing in broader relation to the politics of time, dialectics and mobility and what genius means. After some observations on various considerations of Lenin in relation to Western Marxism and avant garde aesthetics, another context, derived from a short review by Walter Benjamin of Lenin’s letters to Gorky, excavates the constrasting dialectical context of ‘Creative Indifference’ (Salomo Friedlaender/Myona). Benjamin’s review attempts to place Lenin in relation to post-Nietzschean and absurdist strands of thinking that transform both the assumptions conveyed by the Westernness of Western Marxism and the modes of avant gardism typically associated with Bolshevism. Conclusions about the reactionary nature of a demand for genius and the collapse of public and private life into something prior to both are what Walter Benjamin draws from his Lenin lessons. Keywords: Image; Walter Benjamin; Dialectics; Trotsky; Stalin; air-Brushing, Friedlaender
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication |
| Depositing User: | Esther Leslie |
| Date Deposited: | 13 Feb 2025 16:13 |
| Last Modified: | 31 Mar 2025 05:21 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/54968 |
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