THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 23, 1996 TAG: 9601230043
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 40 lines
FOR MUCH of the 20th century in Russia, the only art allowed for exhibition or sale was official art reflecting government politics.
As a result, artists who felt compelled to create non-official art necessarily operated underground, said Dr. Allison Hilton, who lectures at 5:30 tonight at The Chrysler Museum of Art. Sponsored by the Norfolk Society of Arts, her free talk is titled ``Russian Art and Politics - From Utopia to Underground.'' The museum is at 245 W. Olney Rd., Norfolk
Hilton is no remote scholar. She had her first encounters with Soviet dissident artists in the 1970s. Hilton, who teaches art history at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., was on a research trip when she became keenly aware of the difference between official museum art - and dissident art.
Her trip came at a time when non-official artists were just beginning to emerge from hiding. Hilton took chances in meeting with some of these artists in their underground studios.
``Getting to know some of those people was really an enormous awakening for me. That was really at a time they were struggling very much.''
A 1962 Moscow exhibition had proven a turning point, she said. Because of the more liberal attitude of Nikita Khrushchev, a few dissident artists were allowed in, Hilton explained.
A leading figure in the noncomformist art movement was Ernst Neizzestny, who now lives in New York, Hilton said.
Ironically, a non-official sculpture by Neizzestny was installed at the United Nations in the fall, with Russian president Boris Yeltsin helping to unveil the work.
``I happened to be at dinner with him the night before the dedication,'' Hilton said. ``He was really pretty thrilled.'' by CNB