Permanent Exhibition
On 16 May, the Museum of Humor and Satire presents the exhibition Satire and Propaganda in the cartoons from the Gabrovo Biennial 1973 – 1989. The exhibition traces the period of creation of the Museum’s collection in the context of the new rules in (and uses of) satire during the establishment of the communist regime in our country. Particular attention is paid to how the emergence of the House of Humor and Satire changed and developed the field of cartoons and satire in the country.
Hall 6, Museum of Humor and Satire
Откриване: 16 май, 17:00
The exhibition presents a study of the cartoons that participated in the International Biennial of Humor and Satire, organized by the House of Humor and Satire from its creation in 1973 until the end of the totalitarian period in 1989. Its aim is to assess the possibility of satire in a society in which the freedom of expression is limited, and the possibility of criticism is locked in the norm of “small justice” – individual phenomena and mistakes of the bureaucracy can be condemned to a certain, low level of power, without specifically naming and indicating party leaders, often using the so-called called “Aesopian language”. The organizers of the Biennial are extremely honest, choosing to name the Grand Prize the “Golden Aesop”. The other use of satire in cartoons, where it was directed outwards at international politics and the ideological enemy, was on the contrary quite specific, with clear depictions of political figures such as Margaret Thatcher, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger. Truthful or not, in a heavily muted and controlled information environment, these cartoons became a propaganda tool – a practice already well worked out on the pages of the newspapers Papagal (Parrot) and Starshel (Hornet) since the establishment of the new government.
In order to illustrate the spirit of the times and the limits of freedom, three events outside the Biennial are also presented in the exhibition:
- the “Hot Peppers” case with the book of epigrams, selected and titled by Radoy Ralin and illustrated by Boris Dimovski;
- the arrest of Todor Tsonev because of caricatures of Todor Zhivkov and other party leaders found in his studio;
- the cartoon “Haidushko Horo” by Georgi Chaushov, published on the pages of the Starshel newspaper in November 1989.
Several key themes stand out in the considered volume of biennial cartoons: wars and conflicts, economic crises, criticism of Western society, apartheid, religion, ecology, on the one hand globally and on the other, domestically – the life of the little man, the bureaucracy , the search for meaning, domestic adversity, power dynamics in the home.
Visitors have the opportunity to engage in the exhibition through an interactive application with two modules – self-irony and re-cartoon. In the first, the viewers can put their own image in the selected cartoon, and in the second they can remix attributes from different cartoons, creating their own one.
The exhibition “Satire and Propaganda” can be viewed through a virtual tour which provides freedom of movement and interaction with the exhibition, through the addition of interactive markers to the works within.
The “Address of Satire” project – creation of an exhibition from the fund of the “House of Humor and Satire” Museum – Gabrovo and an accompanying program on the role and limits of satire and its exhibition in renovated spaces in the Museum”.
The project is implemented under the Program “Cultural Entrepreneurship, Heritage and Cooperation”, financed by the FM of the EEA 2014-2021.
Contract No. BGCULTURE-1.001-0039