Much could be said about Laibach (and has been, here at Counter-Currents). The name is the German form of Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital city. The language choice references their Austro-Hungarian past, and depending on who you ask, maybe some other era, too. Their sound is one of a kind, as unique as that of Laure LePrunenec. Laibach is best described as an industrial band with heavy martial and totalitarian influences. One notable characteristic of their unique presentation is walking a tightrope between fascist aesthetics and socialist realism. (more…)
Tag: fascist art
-
One of the delights of revisiting old movies after many years is finding out that you completely misread or misremembered certain scenes. Early on in the first part of Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia, we have the entry parades of the national teams. When the French team come by, they drag their flag in the dust – because, or so I assumed decades ago, these robust athletes were utterly disgusted with the new Popular Front government under the hapless Léon Blum (more…)
-
Fernando Esposito
Fascism, Aviation and Mythical Modernity
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015The British political theorist Roger Griffin has argued that the defining characteristic of fascist movements is a central myth of national rebirth, or palingenetic ultranationalism. His study of fascism (The Nature of Fascism) sparked controversy upon its publication because it diverged from the consensus at the time that fascist movements were purely reactionary and conservative in character; (more…)
-
6,216 words
When I’ve tried to describe Laibach to the uninitiated, the best analogy I’ve come up with is, “Laibach is what would emerge if you were to take a group of industrial musicians and a group of political scientists and lock them in a gallery containing nothing but fascist, Communist, and modernist art for a year and then released them.” (more…)