Soviet-American Art Exchanges during the Thaw: from Bold Openings to Hasty Retreats

[Introduction] East-West artistic connections during the Cold War were a complex range of phenomena including the circulation of works of art, travelling by art professionals, the exchange of practices and the adoption of art currents from the other side of the Iron Curtain. The Cold War has also been said to have influenced the arts and artistic processes in a number of ways. Yet, art has always shunned political borders, wavering between the guidance of individual and governmental patrons, and borderless expression. This chapter discusses an attempt at an extensive exchange of exhibitions between the Soviet Union and the United States around the late 1950s that involved New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Pushkin Art Museum from Moscow and many other leading art institutions. It illustrates the prospects of fine art in expanding the horizons of people, while at the same time it manifests the strict limitations that political players on both sides managed to impose on the arts. [Continues, please see the article]