Friday Night Films at the Wende: USSR Art

On July 7, 1988, Sotheby’s conducted a historic art auction in Moscow at which 100 paintings by once clandestine artists sold for over $3 million. This latest manifestation of glasnost reverberated throughout the Moscow art world, bringing unforeseen opportunities and problems for a generation of previously unacknowledged, “unofficial,” artists.

USSR Art (1988), directed by Barbara Herbich, plunges into the middle of this economic and aesthetic confusion, presenting a fascinating overview of Soviet art and artists in transition, and of a society struggling with its first flirtations with commercialism. Featuring interviews with many of these leading artists (who have suddenly become celebrities), as well as a large representative sampling of their works, USSR Art provides an invaluable window on what was then the most rapidly developing and exciting movement in the international art world.