Art and Revolution: Ernst Neizvestny, Endurance, and the Role of the Artist

In this prescient and beautifully written book, Booker Prize-winning author John Berger examines the life and work of Ernst Neizvestny, a Russian sculptor whose exclusion from the ranks of officially approved Soviet artists left him laboring in enforced obscurity to realize his monumental and very public vision of art. But Berger's impassioned account goes well beyond the specific dilemma of the pre-glasnot Russian artist to illuminate the very meaning of revolutionary art. In his struggle against official orthodoxy--which involved a face-to-face confrontation with Khruschev himself--Neizvestny was fighting not for a merely personal or aesthetic vision, but for a recognition of the true social role of art. His sculptures earn a place in the world by reflecting the courage of a whole people, by commemorating, in an age of mass suffering, the resistance and endurance of millions.



"Berger is probably our most perceptive commentator on art.... A civilized and stimulating companion no matter what subject happens to cross his mind."--Philadelphia Inquirer

• Seed to Harvest
• Citizen: An American Lyric
• Migrant Imaginaries: Latino Cultural Politics in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands (Nation of Nations)
• Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War
• Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
• About Looking
• Everyday Law on the Street: City Governance in an Age of Diversity (Chicago Series in Law and Society)
• Landscapes: John Berger on Art
• The Success and Failure of Picasso
• The Sense of Sight