Countercultural Misunderstandings: Alternative Art and Cold War Politics

Drawing on Theodore Roszak's 1969 classic, The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and its Youthful Opposition, this essay argues that the difficulties experienced by members of the counterculture in establishing bonds of solidarity with potentially like-minded groups were often shared by alternative artists working internationally post-1968. Opening with a case study in hostile American feedback on the politics of Russian émigré art in early 1980s New York, the article works through a range of unintended and intentional misunderstandings among leftist art workers and countercultural figures, whose political positions were formed in different centres and peripheries. Arguing that alternative art should be viewed as part of a shared, anti-technocratic project, the article proposes that glitches in communication are worth lingering over, as we continue to grapple with different accounts of historical developments, and seek to find ways of working across borders in polarized times.