Jaak Kangilaski, “A Look Inside US Art Museums,” translated from Estonian by Kristopher Rikken, originally published as “Pilk USA kunstimuuseumidesse,” in Kunst (1970): 56–68 (excerpt)

Jaak Kangilaski visited the US in the Fall of 1969, and reported on his impressions of several major galleries. As visits by Soviet scholars to the capitalist countries were rare, this is one of the few sources in Estonian offering firsthand impressions of the art world in the US. This excerpt focuses on the MoMA in New York. In hindsight, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (founded in 1929, now with over 40,000 members) seems to be the most representative and comprehensive collection of -twentieth-century Western art. At the Museum of Modern Art, lectures are held on both individual topics and in cycles, and prospectuses and catalogues are published just as in other museums. The museum has studios where people from different age groups can try their hand at creating an artwork, having been persuaded in the exhibition halls that “anyone can do it.”.