Varvara V. Turova, “Concerning Several Trends in Contemporary Painting,” translated from Russian by Christina Lodder, originally published as “O nekotorykh tendentsiiakh sovremennoi zhivopisi,” in G.A. Nedoshivin (ed.), Sovremennoe zapadnoe iskusstvo. Ideinye motivy. Puti razvitiia (Moscow, Nauka, 1971), 316–347 (excerpt)

In Varvara Turova’s essay on the tendencies of modern painting, published in 1971, American abstract art is considered as a refuge and shelter for the contemporary person, creating a new absolute world, overcoming the uncertainty and relativity of our Reality. This signifies a turn away from a totally critical approach towards non-realist American art to the deliberate analysis of the forms and tendencies of abstract, Surrealist, and Pop art. Abstract Expressionism emerged in America in the 1940s. Abstract Expressionism is related to the influence of Surrealism, and especially to the work of the leading Surrealist artists who had moved to New York during the war. Apparently, Pop art managed to establish some real connections with the trends of the times. Its rapid growth and expansion (from the first exhibition in the Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, in 1962 to Rauschenberg receiving the top prize at the Venice Biennale in 1964) can only be explained by the vacuity of foreign fads.