Images of the Ends of History

The exhibition Images of the Ends of History opens in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. It commemorates the 30th anniversary of the fall of 1989, "presenting it in a broader time, political, and media perspective, from the beginning of ‘perestroika’ to the establishment of a new ‘democratic’ political and media environment. The exhibition is based on the theory that the fall of communism was not a sudden and isolated historical event, but it had its own more general and long-term causes and consequences and that it played its role in the transformation of visual media and their roles. The exhibition presents the period between 1985 and 1995 through photography and the related media (graphic design, video, cartoon, film and TV), and focuses on the interrelated political and media changes in the Czech society.” Zuzana Lednická therefore happily used the plentiful misdeeds, clichés and technical constraints of at first, gradually, and later, hurryingly loosening, naive and boastful time. The A4 format as a basic element for the installation of the exhibition and its promotion is readily complemented by ring binding punching, incorrect registers, the world’s glossiest papers and fonts of the first IT ads.