https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=-iT3IJAIMzo
I collect art because I collected Soviet realist art, partly because I was extremely interested in the pieces as historical artifacts. And then I was interested in the war between propaganda and the artistic tendency that each canvas represented, because a lot of the Soviet realist artists were very technically proficient and skilled as artists, but then they were forced to serve as propagandists. And so you have this terrible tension, and they often painted in essentially an impressionist style. Wasn’t exactly realist. It was much more an impressionist style. This terrible tension in the canvas between what’s really incredibly high level artistic ability and this narrow propagandistic window. So those canvases are a real battle between two opposing spirits. And so they’re very intense things to have around you. You know, like a beautiful portrayal of Lenin sitting by a window while a child plays the violin. That’s a complicated object, because Lenin was a complete bloody monster.