Face to Face

Face to Face presents people from the Eastern Bloc as they were portrayed in paintings and photographs during the Cold War era. Punk rockers and outcasts are shown next to idealized workers and farmers. Soviet and Hungarian paintings illustrate how pictorial traditions changed over time and how the artists found myriad ways to express the individuality of those portrayed. The photographic series Russians by American photographer Nathan Farb gives us a surprisingly rich, candid, and sometimes humorous peek behind the Iron Curtain. East German photographers Claus Bach and Harald Hauswald document life at the fringes of socialist society. This exhibition highlighted how art from socialist Eastern Europe was as diverse as its people.

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