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The Cooper Union reinstated a student show that it initially barred for fears it would offend the Ukrainians in the neighborhood, The New York Times reported.
The exhibit was apolitical but concerned a Russian response to the Bauhaus. The exhibit is called “Vkhutemas: Laboratory of the Avant-Garde, 1920–1930.” Vkhutemas was dismantled by Stalin.
The show was closed four days after Peder Anker, a history of science professor at New York University, published an essay in Archinect. “I believe the Cooper Union should terminate this exhibition and put a pause on its courses on Soviet and Russian architecture,” Anker wrote. “To hide war crimes, Russian acolytes in New York try their best to make their nation shine as harboring highbrow culture.”
In announcing that the show would not open, Hayley Eber, acting dean of Cooper Union’s architecture school, said the institution needed “time and space” to make “an informed decision on moving forward. It is important to stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and our own Ukrainian community members as we thoughtfully explore our next steps.”
But more than 750 scholars and students signed a letter to Cooper Union. “We stand in full solidarity with the people of Ukraine and all those who oppose Russia’s unjustified and brutal invasion. To conflate the work of an architectural school based in Moscow a century ago (and shut down after just one decade in a wave of cultural and political suppression) with the actions of the Russian regime today, however, represents both a profound misunderstanding of the history of Vkhutemas and a troubling instance of censorship and historical erasure,” the letter said.
On Monday, Cooper Union reinstated the show.
