Escape to an alternative country

Escape to an alternative country

On a cold December day in 1962, Nikita Khrushchev stepped outside the Kremlin to see some art. The occasion was the thirtieth anniversary of the Moscow Artists’ Union, an official Soviet institution that promoted the state-mandated mode of socialist realism. But Khrushchev had been signalling liberalization, especially in the cultural spheres, so the organizers included some more experimental pieces. Among the heroic depictions of bodies at work…