Art critic and leftist Suneet Chopra has said that humanity is facing the greatest threat today than in the times of Adolf Hitler.
In a country that is incapable of thinking about humanity, self-liberation is impossible, he said while inaugurating ‘Red October’, an exhibition of sketches by iconic film-maker Sergei Eisenstein and posters and books related to the Russian Revolution at Durbar Hall Art Centre on Sunday.
The exhibition is held by the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi in collaboration with the Kolkata-based Seagull Foundation for the Arts to commemorate the centenary of the Russian Revolution.
“In this country today, if you kill a cow, you are punished, but if you kill a Dalit, nothing happens,” Mr. Chopra said. Defending humanity is the foremost duty of an artist, he said.
K.P. Mohanan, Secretary, Kerala Sahitya Akademi, delivered the keynote address at the function presided over by Nemom Pushparaj, Chairman of the Lalithakala Akademi. Battleship Potemkin , Sergei Eisenstein’s milestone film, was screened after the inaugural function.
‘Red October’, featuring some 58 drawings of Eisenstein, will continue till January 30. The exhibition will be open to public from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily except on Mondays. The screening of movies Ivan the Terrible , Alexander Nevsky , Que Viva Mexico and Ten Days That Shook the World by Sergei Eisenstein will be held at 3 p.m. every day. An exhibition of some 150 books on the Russian Revolution and the events associated with it and the ideology that drove is also being held along with the event.
