fascists and communists are united in their hatred of "degenerate" art, so i'm fine with it. if exposing the citizens of the USSR to Modern American art advanced the fall of the soviet union then w/e, if it also happened to give Rothko money to paint then that's a solid win.— cognitohazard (@bryanarchyNOW) June 3, 2021
IIRC it wasn't entirely about removing politics from art, it was also a geopolitical dick-waving thing to encourage a "high-art" scene that was uniquely western and entirely at odds with modernist art like socialist realism. It accomplished two goals for them then: emphasizing and helping meaningless nonsense to dominate the western art scene and academia, and cultivating the cultural prestige that art scene carried with it.
IIRC it wasn't entirely about removing politics from art, it was also a geopolitical dick-waving thing to encourage a "high-art" scene that was uniquely western and entirely at odds with modernist art like socialist realism. It accomplished two goals for them then: emphasizing and helping meaningless nonsense to dominate the western art scene and academia, and cultivating the cultural prestige that art scene carried with it.
It was a “Keeping-up-with-the-Jones” except it was with science and culture, which we threw out the moment the USSR crumbled