NYT Art Critic Celebrates Nostalgia for Soviet Union Over Headline 'When Repression Was a Muse'
By Clay Waters | July 22, 2011 | 11:26
One can hardly imagine a newspaper running a headline that suggested a fascist society like Nazi Germany had its good points. Yet the New York Times has carved out a side industry in headlines that suggest a bright side to Communist tyranny in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
The latest came attached to art critic Holland Cotter’s 1,700-word review of “Ostalgia,” an exhibit of Soviet and post-Soviet art at the New Museum in Manhattan, splashed along the top fold of Friday’s Weekend Arts section: “When Repression Was a Muse.” “Ostalgia” is a coinage for the strange cultural nostalgia for Communism (i.e., inferior but somehow endearing cars like the East German Trabant) felt by some East Germans who found it hard to cope with the freedoms, opportunities, and responsibilities of a more capitalist society.
In August 2008 the Times ran this jaw-dropping headline over a book review: "East Germany Had Its Charms, Crushed by Capitalism."
The Times featured this headline over a February 12, 1992 story of the last Soviet political prisoners being released: "A Gulag Breeds Rage, Yes, but Also Serenity."
Cotter’s actual review talked of Soviet repression but also claimed “free-market capitalism” was a tyranny of its own:
There was an initial assumption in the West that the end of the cold war in 1991 brought universal jubilation. But time has proved and the show suggests otherwise. Free-market capitalism brought its suppressions and exclusions, as artists discovered. Among other things, some felt, it undermined the purpose and value of art.
Under Communism artists had limited professional opportunities. Those whose work didn’t adhere to state guidelines found no market. They had to support themselves with day jobs, doing whatever they could. If their art touched on hot-button political issues, it was censored, slapped down.
For some artists repression had a psychological upside. It gave their work a clear-cut sense of importance. It established art’s primary value as moral, not monetary; instrumental, not formal. If what you were doing was censorable, you could trust you were doing something right; heroic, even. And this attitude fostered solidarity and the growth of a counterculture in which experimentation, individuality and iconoclasm were protected and nurtured.
- Clay Waters's blog
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Comments
What else would you expect...
Submitted by Dave. on Fri, 07/22/2011 - 11:49am.
...from a communist publication?
-Dave
Gov funded Artholes, heads would twist off if they watched this:
Submitted by upcountrywater on Fri, 07/22/2011 - 12:06pm.
Be the first one on your block to give up your private property, all that practice what you preeech stuff.
A fellow Democrat when Reagan was one.
Arbeit macht frei
Submitted by CobraMan on Fri, 07/22/2011 - 1:09pm.
Arbeit macht frei: Work brings freedom, as the Nazis would say.
So, imprisonment and repression is good for the soul? I guess the New York Times won't mind a return to solitary confinement, to forced labor and censorship, as a means of enlightenment. I mean, really, look at the bright side. Just think about all of the beautiful works of art that can be created, if only we repress the human soul completely!
What was it that the Jews said about things like this? Oh, that's right, Arbeit Macht Frei durch den Schornstein: Work brings freedom through the chimney.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
... art touched on hot-button political issues ...
Submitted by Fredy on Fri, 07/22/2011 - 1:25pm.
"If their art touched on hot-button political issues, it was censored, slapped down."
Dude, those artists were taken away and KILLED! Only a complete IDIOT could be so IGNORANT of RECENT history.
How STUPID can IDIOTS like this make the unwary reader?
Holland Cotter Is Morally Bankrupt
Submitted by Comrade Jim on Fri, 07/22/2011 - 3:22pm.
Here is the kind of case that Cotter is making:
The Gulag produced a great writer like Solzhenitsyn and and the free market produced the depraved Andres Serrano who produced the crucifix in urine and passed it off as art.
Cotter's message is that we ought therefore to be nostalgic for the Gulag, repression, torture, imprisonment, and tyranny in general because that produces good artists.
As for the other millions, artists and all, whose lives were destroyed in the Gulag, well, that is the price of having a system that produces good art.
But there is lots of good art in the free market which isn't noticed by the left wing art world because it doesn't further the left wing agenda. Also there is plenty of awful art in totalitarian systems, especially in the form of propaganda art.
Try this on for size
Submitted by DontFeedTheTrolls on Fri, 07/22/2011 - 3:48pm.
Just like when Lincoln freed the slaves there was a lot of nostalgia for 'the good old days'. Oh, to be back pickin' cotton instead of a free man!
I caught Gang of Sixer Saxby Shameless the RINO...
Submitted by Dave. on Fri, 07/22/2011 - 4:02pm.
...on the Rusty Humphries show a little while ago, and he was doing his best to justify raising the debt ceiling and taxes as well.
He is about as clueless as it gets.
-Dave