DOI Heft:
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DOI Artikel:Piotrowski, Piotr; Wilczyński, Marek [Übers.]: Modernism and totalitarism II: myths of geometry: neo-constructivism in Central Europe 1948 - 1970
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28179#0155
MODERNISM AND TOTALITARIANISM II
153
own, all too obvious ideological advantage. Their participation in Inter-
national expositions was restricted: the police would (or would not) issue
a passport, the customs did (or did not) allow for the relocation of art-
works, and finally, all the per diems, stipends and subsidies in hard or
local currency were controlled by the communist officials who could grant
them at will. Censorship was just one and by no means the most sophis-
ticated method of political and administrative control. Also on the other
side of the “iron curtain” the reception of the Central and Eastern
European art was not governed by some universal criteria. The very mo-
ment when an artist from the “Other Europę” entered the art market in
the West was a test of truth - the alleged universalism of artistic values
did not count and ąuickly it became ąuite elear who was who. For many
Western institutions the work of specific individuals was interesting
mainly because he or she came from “elsewhere,” and not because of any
“universal” dimension. As regards the value in cash and the interest of
foreign museums, there was little room for illusions. The “geographical”
differences in prices between the East and West were often enormous,
and sometimes indeed offensive to the most renowned artists from Cen-
tral Europę - their works could be purchased for $100 per item, which is
the cost of a modest supper for two. Likewise, the purchases madę by
Western museums demonstrated that a universal hierarchy of art, sup-
posedly valid on both sides of the “curtain,” was just a figment of imagi-
nation. In the practice of everyday life the universalism of artistic values
would freąuently turn out a fragile myth.
There is perhaps one morę reason to be suspicious about that myth-
ology of universalism: a kind of strange coincidence of the belief of artists
in their participation in the universal (i.e. Western) culture and the
strategy of the communist regimes seeking liberał legitimization in the
West. This refers in particular to Yugoslavia, Poland, and Hungary. The
strategy of survival through credit and economic legitimacy madę a lib-
erał tactic indispensable. Limited to culture, and particularly to the
painting rooted in the myth of “blank canvas” and hence free of any
political commitment, such art posed no danger to the principles of com-
munism, therefore it could be successfully used as evidence of changes.
As a result, in those Eastern European states whose authorities rejected
the Stalinist doctrine of “building communism in one country” in favor of
openness (mostly economic) to the outside world, the approval of the uni-
versal trends in art could indeed prove very effective. After all, rejecting
the socialist realism (i.e., the Stalinist art as propaganda) and choosing
neo-constructivism - an allegedly universal and (Western) European ten-
dency - artists did just the same as the post-Stalinist regimes, rejecting
the political economy of Stalinism in favor of the so-called limited market
153
own, all too obvious ideological advantage. Their participation in Inter-
national expositions was restricted: the police would (or would not) issue
a passport, the customs did (or did not) allow for the relocation of art-
works, and finally, all the per diems, stipends and subsidies in hard or
local currency were controlled by the communist officials who could grant
them at will. Censorship was just one and by no means the most sophis-
ticated method of political and administrative control. Also on the other
side of the “iron curtain” the reception of the Central and Eastern
European art was not governed by some universal criteria. The very mo-
ment when an artist from the “Other Europę” entered the art market in
the West was a test of truth - the alleged universalism of artistic values
did not count and ąuickly it became ąuite elear who was who. For many
Western institutions the work of specific individuals was interesting
mainly because he or she came from “elsewhere,” and not because of any
“universal” dimension. As regards the value in cash and the interest of
foreign museums, there was little room for illusions. The “geographical”
differences in prices between the East and West were often enormous,
and sometimes indeed offensive to the most renowned artists from Cen-
tral Europę - their works could be purchased for $100 per item, which is
the cost of a modest supper for two. Likewise, the purchases madę by
Western museums demonstrated that a universal hierarchy of art, sup-
posedly valid on both sides of the “curtain,” was just a figment of imagi-
nation. In the practice of everyday life the universalism of artistic values
would freąuently turn out a fragile myth.
There is perhaps one morę reason to be suspicious about that myth-
ology of universalism: a kind of strange coincidence of the belief of artists
in their participation in the universal (i.e. Western) culture and the
strategy of the communist regimes seeking liberał legitimization in the
West. This refers in particular to Yugoslavia, Poland, and Hungary. The
strategy of survival through credit and economic legitimacy madę a lib-
erał tactic indispensable. Limited to culture, and particularly to the
painting rooted in the myth of “blank canvas” and hence free of any
political commitment, such art posed no danger to the principles of com-
munism, therefore it could be successfully used as evidence of changes.
As a result, in those Eastern European states whose authorities rejected
the Stalinist doctrine of “building communism in one country” in favor of
openness (mostly economic) to the outside world, the approval of the uni-
versal trends in art could indeed prove very effective. After all, rejecting
the socialist realism (i.e., the Stalinist art as propaganda) and choosing
neo-constructivism - an allegedly universal and (Western) European ten-
dency - artists did just the same as the post-Stalinist regimes, rejecting
the political economy of Stalinism in favor of the so-called limited market