Tony wrote:
> The actions of the State Department were in fact no different from those of
> their opposing cultural commissars pushing Voznesensky and Yevtushenko, but
> the Russians screwed it up by stifling their own avantgarde rather than
> using it as a countermove against the Americans. Not that there was much of
> an avantgarde in Russia at the time, to be honest.
A favourite William S. Burroughs simile: "...as fake as a
Communist mural."
No different? Pollock, Rothko, de Kooning, Kline, Newman et al were
toured around Europe as GIANT examples of The Kinds of Things You Can
Do In The States (Without Being Killed; In Fact, Here`s A Grant).
"Stifling"..? Why wasn`t there much of an avant-garde in Russia "at
the time, to be honest". Does "stifling" do it justice? Mightn`t
the State Dept. have a point?
robin
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