The Bruce Museum’s provocative new exhibition Hot Art in a Cold War: Intersections of Art and Science in the Soviet Era examines one of the dominant concerns of Soviet unofficial artists—and citizens everywhere—during the Cold War: the consequences of innovation in science, technology, mathematics, communications, and design. Juxtaposing art made in opposition to state-sanctioned Socialist Realism with artifacts from the Soviet nuclear and space programs, Hot Art in a Cold War touches upon the triumphs and tragedies unleashed as humankind gained the power to both leave the Earth and to destroy it.
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“The Bruce Museum prides itself in being a museum of both art and science and in finding the interconnections between the two,” says Dr. Daniel Ksepka, Bruce Museum Curator of Science and co-curator of the exhibition. “Hot Art in a Cold War is a perfect example of this unique focus. Visitors will see how the triumphs of the space program and anxieties about nuclear arms were captured by period artists. Likewise, many of the scientific objects are works of art in their own right. The elegance of Sputnik, for example, is as striking and undeniable as its impact on the space race.”
“This exhibition is very timely, as we see history repeating itself in the connection between the ‘official’ behaviors of the Cold War and today’s ongoing wars and political conflicts, not to mention the ever-increasing role that technology plays in our everyday lives,” adds Ksenia Nouril, exhibition co-curator.
Hot Art in a Cold War is an expanded version of an exhibition organized at the Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., by Ksenia Nouril, Dodge Fellow, Zimmerli Art Museum and PhD Candidate, Department of Art History at Rutgers. The exhibition at the Zimmerli and Ms. Nouril’s fellowship have been supported by the Avenir Foundation and the Andrew Mellon Foundation.
“While the exhibition focuses on two main events of the Cold War—the nuclear arms and space races—museumgoers could place it within the context of a number of other related historical flash points, from the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 to tearing it down in 1989, the Cuban Missile crisis in 1962, the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989), and the current crises in eastern Ukraine, Syria, and elsewhere,” Nouril explains.
On view at the Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT through to May 20, 2018.
