The Art of Marc Klionsky: Shaping a Three-World Condition from Minsk to New York

Georgetown University professor and author Ori Z Soltes will explore artist Marc Klionsky’s life and work, in part through conversation with his daughter, the scholar and artist Nadia Klionsky. Born in the Soviet Union, Klionsky managed to navigate what has been called a “two-world condition”—creating the particularized Soviet Socialist Realist work that was acceptable to the Stalinist and post-Stalinist State while allowing his soul to reveal itself in work that only a very few trusted viewers might see. As a Jewish artist, he lived through a “three-world condition,” needing always to negotiate where that part of his identity might or might not express itself in his art. He managed to immigrate to New York City in 1974, where his work exploded in an endless array of stylistic directions, developing a substantial career that continued until his death in 2017.