The People and the Poster: Theorizing the Soviet Viewer, 1920–1931

Abstract

The relationship between political posters and their intended viewers was the focus of numerous texts in the 1920s; this article analyzes the ways in which Soviet theorists sought to understand this relationship. They operated in an intellectual context that tried to conceive the modern subject as an active consumer and co-creator, rather than a passive audience. Their study of the contexts of viewing, of display practices and of the role of the viewer as an active participant in the creation of meaning, caused concern about the risk of misunderstandings and led to calls for images to address specific audiences with greater clarity. Many imagined that audiences and producers of images were in dialogue with one another, negotiating over the content, form, and function of political art. The image would thus mediate the relationship between individual and state, integrating political messages into everyday life, and aiming to integrate the individual into the process and practice of propaganda.