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Photographs
can lie. They certainly do in the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953,
the years of Joseph Stalin's dictatorial rule. Stalin's agents
routinely arrest and kill as "enemies of the people" anyone who
disagrees with his politics. Communist Party workers then try
to remove any trace of these people from the photographic archives,
and so from the media.
The
Commissar Vanishes exhibition explores this censored history.
By the 1930s Communist "truth" circulates worldwide in party approved
books. With airbrush or ink spot, the photo censors work quietly.
But despite their power, they ultimately fail. The images expose
decades of photographic lies. It's a stark visual tour through
a society where freedom is not an option -- the culture of control
that goes on to create the Berlin Wall.
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