Getting ready to leave on the day after "Defenders of the Fatherland Day," a Soviet-era tribute to soldiers, sailors, and airmen which has become a sort of "Men's Day" in answer to International Women's Day on March 8th. You can buy greeting cards with a tank!
Not too much blogging last week because I was hosting Alice Goldfarb Marquis, author of a recent biography of Marcel Duchamp, The Bachelor Stripped Bare and a forthcoming biography of Clement Greenberg, in town to speak at my university and the American Center Library--and to attend the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, "Dialectics of Hope." She talked about Art and the Cold War, and about the legacy of Marcel Duchamp.
It was really interesting to hear Alice in Moscow, because we had some excellent and very sophisticated discussions about everything from Duchamp's "Large Glass" to Alice knitting mittens and scarves for Soviet troops during World War II.
And, gratifyingly, almost everyone here understands the importance of "ne oficialne" art and real meaning of artistic freedom. And things like the Museum of Modern Art's banning of Alice's biography of Alfred Barr, Jr. from its bookshop-- apparently, you still can't buy it there, but you can buy it here, from Amazon.com.
Alice made an extremely interesting point in a couple of her lectures, namely, that the Soviet Cultural Offensive that lead to American support for the arts in the Cold War actually helped America to develop its own self-conscious art, independent of Europe--viz., Jackson Pollock (discovered by Greenberg) and Duchamp.
The Cold War in art ended up helping America, since, as Alice concluded one talk, "thanks to some anonymous Russian bureaucrats who dreamt up the Soviet Cultural Offensive, I can now see good art and listen to good music in my hometown of La Jolla, California..."
One other interesting item from Alice's talks related to the politics of art, and art criticism. Apparently, the New York Times spiked a scheduled book review of The Bachelor Stripped Bare, after 9/11.
Why?
