Moscow’s Tretyakov Closes Contemporary Art Department, Sparking Protest by Artists Fearful Kremlin is Again Turning on All Things Modern

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 28 – Moscow’s Tretyakov Museum, a state institution and the bellwether flagship of art in the Russian Federation, has just closed its department devoted to modern art, sparking fears that the Putin regime’s commitment to “traditional values” is about to grow into an attack on modernism in all forms of art and literature.

            That fear is all too real because earlier Russian leaders including Stalin and Khrushchev cracked down on modernism because they saw it as alien to the Russian system and thus as a threat to their rule. And so it is notable that many of Russia’s most prominent artists have signed an open letter calling for the Tretyakov and the Russian government behind it to reverse course.

            In reporting these developments, Mariya Arbatova, a prominent feminist, commentator, and television host in the 1990s, warns that “art is a living organism and that if you introduce censorship, that is, limit the work of one part, then the entire system will begin to work poorly” (versia.ru/nenuzhnye-xudozhestva).

            That is what has happened in Russia before and that is what is happening again now, something that all thoughtful people should protest before the country is thrown even further back than has already happened, she suggests. Unfortunately, history suggests that such turns against modernity last far longer and do far more damage than most suspect.