The Role of Censorship in the Formation of Moscow Art Exhibitions in the 1960s—1970s

Abstract

This paper focuses on the interference of censorship into the process of exposition making of the Moscow Branch of the Union of Artists of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in the 1960s—1970s. The first part is dedicated to such form of control as “thematic plans” and state commission. Giving financial support to arts, the Soviet state demanded from artists to express loyalty. As a result, every grand exhibition was conceived not as an artistic event, but rather as a demonstration of collaboration between artists and the state. The second part of the paper examines the work of such censor institutions as the Exhibition Committee, the Party Bureau of the Union of Artists, and the Department for Culture of the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party. Basing on several archive documents and oral testimonies of the artists who worked in the 1960s and 1970s, the author of the paper concludes that there was a total influence of censorship on the staff of exhibition and a lack of independence of the Moscow Branch of the Union of A rtists. A special attention is paid to the reaction of different groups of artists, which was expressed by open protests against censorship, or, more often, by searching new compromises, such as appealing to ideologically neutral themes or using metaphors and “Aesopian language”. The most effective way of liberation from the censorship in that period was holding of small “closed exhibitions” and evenings with artists in the Moscow Branch of the Union of A rtists. The author suggests that proliferation of such exhibitions greatly contributed to splitting the once monolithic Union of Artists into many small communities with their own artistic programs.