Far from Moscow - Loin de Moscou

A monograph by Szymon Piotr Kubiak entitled "Far from Moscow. Gérard Singer and Involved Art”, published by The National Museum in Szczecin in 2016, got a French translation!

This is what Paris editors, Mathilde Arnoux and Sira Luthardt, wrote about it:

"In 2014 «February 14th 1950 in Nice», a monumental painting by French artist Gérard Singer, was re-discovered in a storage of The National Museum in Szczecin. How did it happen? This is what Szymon Piotr Kubiak investigates in his book. Using rich narration, he links communist artistic and cultural circles of France and Poland that are rarely described in artistic historiography of the second half of the twentieth century. Historical retreat enable him to show transformations that were made in artistic practice analysis during Stalinist period in Poland. The author encourages us to reflect on longstanding silence over art in communist states, which occurred when it was not a part of Avant-Garde. Beside political differences and geographical borders, Kubiak creates a network of connections reaching all parts of Europe, divided by the Iron Curtain and makes the art of communist countries the background for visual arts of capitalist world. Therefore the book encourages thinking about correlations of the East and the West and understanding the Cold War in the new light".

The Polish content, reviewed and corrected, has been supplemented by the author with information that are necessary for French readers. The translation was made by Erik Veaux, the translator of works by Tadeusz Borowski, Józef Czapski, Czesław Miłosz and Olga Tokarczuk. The publication was prepared by two prestigious French institutions: German Forum for Art History in Paris (acting within Max Weber Foundation) and House of Humanities (a foundation related to Paris Cité Sorbonne University). Financial support has been provided by German Historical Institute in Warsaw. The book was released within "Passerelles” (the Bridges) series, led by Professor Thomas Kirchner, which includes essays on art history. Works by renown authors like Jean-Louis Cohen, Werner Hoffmann, Willibald Sauerländer or Pierre Vaisse have been published within the series so far. Szymon Piotr Kubiak is the Manager of the Department of European Art of 1800–1945 at The National Museum in Szczecin and an assistant professor at The Art Acedemy of Szczecin.