The Kids Want Communism — Second Installment Opens at MoBY

The Kids Want Communism (TKWC) is an ongoing clandestine and public series of events marking ninety-nine years to the Bolshevik Revolution. A joint project of numerous individuals and organizations, TKWC hosts exhibitions, screenings, discussions, seminars, publications, programmatic texts, sci-fi snippets, exclusive images and interviews, all dedicated to keeping alive the hypothesis of universal emancipation. To illustrate the spirit and international applicability of The Kids Want Communism, following is an excerpt from the manifesto In Defense of Society: An Open Platform, penned by a group of Russian activists and intellectuals about the current political situation in that country which is referenced by the TKWC blog:

“The ruling elite has made full use of the apathy and fragmentation of our society. The state media bursts with loyalist propaganda, presenting all protests as the result of manipulation by foreign enemies, while its main opposition is dominated by right-wing liberals: apologists of the free market and privatization. A position that would connect the left with democratic agendas is virtually never expressed. We believe that the only alternative to poverty, barbarism and the disintegration of society is an alliance for the development of common political positions and programs for collective action.”

As the backdrop to the title of the year-long exhibition at MoBY is one of the photos from the archives of the Communist Party of Israel which is now on display in the second installment of The Kids Want Communism: an Arab-Jewish Communist delegation from Palestine in a parade in Yugoslavia, 1947

As the backdrop to the title of the year-long exhibition at MoBY is one of the photos from the archives of the Communist Party of Israel which is now on display in the second installment of The Kids Want Communism: an Arab-Jewish Communist delegation from Palestine in a parade in Yugoslavia, 1947

Today, the perception of communism relies mostly on its manifestations in the real-existing socialisms of the twentieth century. Although many of the works in the exhibition The Kids Want Communism reference this history, they employ historical events in order to identify potentialities, opportunities, associations, and relations that still hold true for us today. The museum building acts as a sort of space station, venturing into uncharted territories that are inaccessible to us today on Earth. It explores perspectives, axis systems, and connections that seem unacceptable under our current political reality, whose rule claims to be consistent and absolute as the laws of physics which govern our world.

In Israel, the second installment of the year-long series of TKWC exhibitions, opened last Thursday, July 28, at the Museum of Bat Yam (MoBY) where it will run through November 12, featuring work by various Israeli and international artists, including: Nir Harel, Anna Lukashevsky, Nabil Maleh, Piyasiri Gunaratna, Nosratollah Karimi, Noa Yafe, Ohad Meromi, Jonathan Gold, Ra’anan Harlap, Nicole Wermers, Micah Hesse, The Praxis Archive, and The Communist Party of Israel Archives.

On Friday, November 4, MoBY will also host the first session of the 10th Marx Forum on “Imperialism, Then and Now,” to mark the upcoming 100th anniversary of the publication of Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), by V.I. Lenin.

MoBY website: www.moby.org.il

The Kids Want Communism Blog: http://tkwc.tumblr.com

Related: From Tomorrow, New Exhibition at MoBY: The Kids Want Communism