Explanation: The Soviet Union put some fairly stringent restrictions on art, out of a bizarre idea that certain styles, even absent any offensive themes, were ‘bourgeois’. While this attitude softened temporarily under Khrushchev in the 1950s (though Khrushchev also famously despised the abstract art movements of the period), ‘Soviet Realism’ remained the dominant style pushed by the Soviets and their puppets.
For that reason, the US found supporting abstract art a useful way to create a wedge between the Soviet Union and artistic circles.
At the same time, as governments are very often not monolithic structures, but consisting of numerous institutions with their own portfolios and aims, some of which are subsumed by shockingly clientistic-feudal networks headed by a small number of influential bureaucrats, the FBI under Edgar Hoover was investigating these selfsame artistic circles, hoping to find something just lawful enough to charge them with. Anything to satisfy the FBI’s conservative urge to penalize dangerous free-thinkers.
Explanation: The Soviet Union put some fairly stringent restrictions on art, out of a bizarre idea that certain styles, even absent any offensive themes, were ‘bourgeois’. While this attitude softened temporarily under Khrushchev in the 1950s (though Khrushchev also famously despised the abstract art movements of the period), ‘Soviet Realism’ remained the dominant style pushed by the Soviets and their puppets.
For that reason, the US found supporting abstract art a useful way to create a wedge between the Soviet Union and artistic circles.
At the same time, as governments are very often not monolithic structures, but consisting of numerous institutions with their own portfolios and aims, some of which are subsumed by shockingly clientistic-feudal networks headed by a small number of influential bureaucrats, the FBI under Edgar Hoover was investigating these selfsame artistic circles, hoping to find something just lawful enough to charge them with. Anything to satisfy the FBI’s conservative urge to penalize dangerous free-thinkers.