Song of Russia (2005-2007)
Fiks' Song of Russia is a series of oil paintings of images from Hollywood movies produced between 1943 and 1944 whose narratives focus on Russian life.Using scenes that portray propaganda images from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Song of Russia and North Star and Warner Brothers film Mission to Moscow, Fiks painted each stills to bring attention to the practice of Socialist Realism in America. These movies were made at the behest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to promote Soviet-American relationship during World War II.
Fiks describes the irony of these movies:
- What makes these films unique is that they were produced in the USA during the Second World War, that is between the anti-Soviet hysteria that followed the October Revolution and the "Cold War" era. These films were made possible only during 1943-1944 when the goals of the American and Soviet propaganda machines coincided. The project "Song of Russia" reflects this forgotten chapter of the history of American cinema and narrates about the artificiality of the process of enemy construction.
Lenin for Your Library? (2005-2006)
In this project, Fiks sent one hundred copies of V.I. Lenin's book, The Highest Stage of Capitalism, as donations to major transnational corporations around the world including, among many others, Gap, Inc., Coca-Cola, General Electric, and IBM. Fiks received 35 response letters with 14 companies accepting the donation. The resulting response letters of rejection and acceptance compiled the art installation which has been shown worldwide. The project questions the contemporary mentality of corporations as "entities" and the fate of Lenin's critique of imperialism today.. This project has also been compiled into a book with the same title.Communist Party USA (2007)
This project focuses on current members of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in the form of portraiture. These portraits were painted in 2007 directly from life at the New York City headquarters of the Communist Party USA. The project attempts to question the limits of traditional Socialist Realist portraiture applied today to portraits of contemporary American Communist.In his essay entitled, Why I Paint American Communist? Fiks reveals his motive not only in yielding CPUSA as a subject of his artwork but also the medium to which the project was realized:
- My intention is to inform. These paintings portray those who identify as Communists in the present-day United States. It's about stating facts -- and the fact is that there are Communists in the USA circa 2006. The existence of Communists in the USA, a quintessential late-capitalist nation, fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet bloc is highly subversive and problematic for a post-Soviet subject. How can a post-Soviet subject come to terms with the fact of existence of American Communists today? How can she explain it? Communism is dead in Eastern Europe but Abdul, Sheltrees, Dan and others whom I painted are living, breathing, and thinking New Yorkers of the 2000s. It's precisely in this context of the proclaimed death of Communism and the end of the Cold War that I focus my attention on American Communists today. It's the contradiction between the notion of death of Communism and a sense of life emanating from those whom I painted that is so disturbing.
Communist Guide to New York City (2008)
This project is a collection of photographs of buildings and public places in New York City that are connected to the history of the American Communist movement. This includes the contemporary offices of CPUSA on West 23rd street, John Reed house in Greenwich Village, and W.E.B. DuBois apartment in Harlem. This project was published into a guidebook.Adopt Lenin (2008)
In this project, Fiks spent $5000 collecting Lenin memorabilia including Lenin’s busts, small statues, posters and photographs from Ebay and from shops in Moscow. From September to October 2008, Winkleman Gallery hosted a solo show for Fiks where all collected memorabilia were put on display to be "adopted" and taken for free by viewers. The catch is that participants or "adopters" signed a legal contract preventing them from putting the memorabilia back in the market. In short, they can't sell them again. The signed contracts were also on display as part of the art exhibition.In an ArtSlant review entitled, "Lenin Re-commodified", Yaelle Amir writes:
- With this process, Fiks is asking that visitors take part in maintaining the essence of the communist era as a crucial point in history, rather than a source of popular commodity that will come and go as any other fashion. This small act is a poetic intervention into the inevitable romanticization of history, delaying ever so slightly the dimming effects of time and memory.
