Untitled

Introduction
propaganda. The amounts of art produced under these two regimes can be
seen as roughly equal. But under the conditions of the contemporary art
scene, much more attention is devoted to the history of art as commodity
and much less to art as political propaganda. The official as well as unofficial
art of the Soviet Union and of other former Socialist states remains almost
completely out of focus for the contemporary art history and museum system.
The same can be said of the state-supported art of Nazi Germany or Fascist
Italy. The same can also be said of Western European art that was supported
and propagated by the Western Communist parties, especially by the French
Communist Party. The only exception is the art of Russian Constructivism
that was created under NEP, during the temporary reintroduction of the
limited free market in Soviet Russia. Of course, there is a reason for this
neglect of the politically motivated art that was produced outside the standard
conditions of the art market: After the end of World War II and especially
after the change of regime in the former Socialist Eastern European countries,
the commercial system of art production and distribution dominated the
political system. The notion of art became almost synonymous with the
notion of the art market, so that the art produced under the nonmarket conditions
was de facto excluded from the field of institutionally recognized art.
This ongoing exclusion is usually expressed in moral terms: One seems to be
too ethically concerned to deal with the “totalitarian” art of the twentieth
century that “perverted” the “genuine” political aspirations of true utopian
art. This notion of “perverted art” as distinct from “genuine art” is, of course,
highly problematic—in a very curious way this vocabulary is used time and
again by authors who are quick to denounce the use of the same notion of
perversion in other contexts. It is also interesting that even the most severe
judgment on the moral dimensions of the free market never leads anybody
to conclude that art that was and is produced under those market conditions
should be excluded from critical and historical consideration. It is also characteristic
of this mindset that not only the official but also the unofficial,
dissident art of the Socialist countries tends to be neglected by the dominating
art theory.
But whatever one may think about the moral dimension of nonmarket,
“totalitarian” art is, in fact, of no relevance here. The representation of this
politically motivated art inside the art world has nothing to do with the
question of whether one finds this art morally or even aesthetically good or
4 5