ABSTRACT
Susan Buck-Morss In your ‘Civitas Solis: Ghetto as Paradise’, you state that ‘Socialist Realism is not transportable’. 1 You argue that it is necessary to interpret this artistic phenomenon within the context of Soviet experience, and you provide a blackly humorous description of communal life under Stalin. When you describe the infantilism of this communalism, I could not agree with you more. I am fully convinced by what you say. But it immediately raises the question: Why is this case unique? Why only Socialist Realism? Why not other artistic movements – Surrealism, say, or Conceptualism, or even Abstract Expressionism? This leads to the second question. Isn’t art recontextualised every place it is shown?
