The Workers Series, produced between 1989 and 1993, is six paintings distinguished by their large-scale format, parodies of murals in the official social realist style of the former Soviet-bloc. The exhibition premiered at the Musée d’ art contemporain de Montréal and brings together provocative works which constitute a major period in the artist’s career.

On the surface, they seem to celebrate workers and work in allegorical compositions, but the works also seethe with eroticism and the “types” depicted are not the heroic proletariat, but the disaffected anti-social skinheads. Paulette Gagnon, curator of the exhibition explains: “Lukacs traces the history of art by borrowing from compositions of the masters; he is intrigued by certain aspects of political history such as communism and fascism; he appropriates Greek mythology through references to its deities, sources he treats with a keen insight and from a very current perspective.”

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with an essay by Musée d’art contemporain curator Paulette Gagnon, and a brochure entitled Attila Richard Lukacs: Heaven or Hell? in which Zéo Zigzags discusses the seductive aspect but also the bitter side of our society’s reality illustrated by Lukacs.

Attila Richard Lukacs is a travelling exhibition organized by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. The circulation has been made possible by additional financial support from the Canada Council and the Department of Canadian Heritage.