Anca Arghir. ”I don't think American art had such effects beyond the sphere of esthetic considerations, going into ideological propaganda.

Anca Arghir

Romanian art critic

1. What American art exhibitions did you see between 1965 and 1989?

Generalizing the meaning of this questionnaire, I'd say that in those years American art was only seen in Bucharest at the rare exhibition organized under the principle of no politics, no propaganda, no pornography - as a German museum director would say to me after I got to the West; he had tried unsuccessfully to put on an exhibition in Bucharest from his museum inventory (I think it was in Hamburg) and, because there were too many restrictions imposed on him, he relocated the exhibition to Budapest.

2. Between 1965 and 1989, did you see American art in Romania or abroad?

In Bucharest, there had been an exhibition at the American Library, there were also illustrated documentary publications there. After 1970, I settled in West Germany and I saw a lot of American art, either at European museums or in New York, Boston, or Washington.

3. Which American artists and what American approaches/trends/styles interested you at the time?

I was interested in Western art, for which American art was relevant in many ways, anything I cold see in all the museums I had access to, and I would discover the movements or trends selected by those respective organizers from the practice of American art. I was especially interested - like many of my peers from Bucharest - in pop art, especially by way of the thematic and correspondingly stylistic similarities, not lacking socio-political flavor, I would discover with aspects of the socialist realism practiced in the East. What was a sine qua non obligation here in order to have works accepted was a spontaneous and freely consented interest there for solutions of intelligibility in visual language.

4. What position did American art and visual culture have in the artistic milieu you frequented at the time; was it a topic of conversation, was it influential?

It was an important topic because, as I was saying, it could be seen as a typical Western phenomenon and had social-informational value outside of the fact that it often sparked authentic aesthetic pleasure.

5. Retrospectively, do you think that American art and visual culture were a decisive factor in your development as an artist/theoretician?

I can't say they were a decisive factor, more like a substantial information base regarding the thematic-stylistic complex of Western art, discovering, for example, the illustrative-social preoccupations and stylistic solutions one could call populist, freely consented to, spontaneous and unforced, like the practice subjected to socio-cultural censorship in the area of socialist art, and at the same time different from the aspects of stylistic refinement and communicational preoccupations in Western European art, which inspire the descriptor of elitism inasmuch as it implies an experience and visual culture mostly accessible to a privileged social class.

6. Did the American art exhibitions organized in Romania during that period contribute decisively in this sense, or did the information you had about American art and visual culture in general contribute more to this impact?

Naturally, exhibitions were more effective than conventional professional information, the direct contact with the works was more important for visual experience. It's not just about the didactic- informative effects, but more about the spirit with which they were received. On all levels of viewership, there was a curiosity and a lack of critical attitude towards the political sphere the authors and exhibition criteria originated from. This could have been the beginning of an invitation to the chatter of ideological conventionalism.

7. Do you remember whether the presentation and reception of American art and visual culture were encouraged by the communist regime?

I don't remember the American art exhibitions being used as pretexts for propaganda in favor of the American way of life. American pop art figuratively illustrated aspects of this lifestyle and reflected social reality. In many cases, for example, in publishing on artistic manifestations, there was a sociological interpretation being broadcast which corrupted the meaning and message of the works through ideological opportunism.

8. Was being a sympathizer of American art esthetically/ideologically/politically risky?

Sympathy has no place in esthetic appreciation. It would have been a risk if it would have manifested as propaganda for the values and socio-political implications of this art, expressing, in this instance, an attitude that goes beyond the sphere of art.

9. Retrospectively, do you think the influence of American art and visual culture on Romanian art and visual culture between 1965 and 1989 contributed to the transformation/development of Romanian culture and society? If so, in what way?

I don't think it had such effects beyond the sphere of esthetic considerations, going into ideological propaganda. I think the important part was for the public to see an example of a mode of art that brought the culture of a society into the esthetic field. In this sense, showing American art proved itself more complex at a factual level and at the level of stylistic demonstration than was warranted in the ideological sphere of influence that Eastern European art was developing under, and on the level of reception it took on a propagandistic aspect quasi-automatically because of the socio-cultural conditions.