Hills’ essay traces Alfred H. Barr Jr.’s formulation of Abstract Expressionism as the embodiment of US values of freedom and artistic quality during the Cold War. Drawing on the Museum’s archives and Barr’s handbook to the collection “What is Modern Painting?” published in multiple editions and languages, she analyzes this influential guidebook to the collection, … Continue reading “Truth, Freedom, Perfection” Alfred Barr’s What Is Modern Painting? As Cold War Rhetoric
Cold War
By Whose Rules? Contemporary Art and Geography of Art Historic Significance
Brzyski provides a useful methodological approach for those analyzing the definitions and reception of non-Western and Eastern European Cold War and contemporary art. Her discussion of conventional Western interpretations of Chinese contemporary art is particularly productive since she points to blind spots in curatorial and scholarly approaches, among them: the dissonance between Eurocentric temporalities of … Continue reading By Whose Rules? Contemporary Art and Geography of Art Historic Significance
Escadrons de la mort, l’école française
French journalist Marie-Monique Robin explores the terrible French colonial past during the Cold War and the decisive role armed forces played in the conceptualization and dissemination of the counter-subversive war. France’s withdrawal from Indochina (1954), where some of its troops had started to develop techniques to fight the “internal enemy”, encouraged the perception of the … Continue reading Escadrons de la mort, l’école française
Abstract expressionism as cultural critique
Craven argues that the reading of Abstract Expressionism as reflective of Cold War politics in its reinforcement of US imperialist discourse overlooks the decentred, subversive and radical side of this movement. This he explains is reflected in the multicultural roots of AE and the artists interest in non-western art plus the fact that many of … Continue reading Abstract expressionism as cultural critique
