Bryzgel on Astahovska and Priede-Krievkalne and eds., 'Valdis Āboliņš: The Avant-Garde, Mailart, the New Left and Cultural Relations during the Cold War'

This book tells the unlikely story of a Latvian-born ex-patriot, Valdis Āboliņš (1939-84), exiled to Germany during World War II and remaining there after the war, who only lived to the young age of forty-five and who came to play an important role in the development of the North American/European neo-avant-garde. Reading this monograph dedicated to the figure of Āboliņš, one is overwhelmed by what this Renaissance man managed to accomplish in his short life—the people he knew and brought together, the art he discovered and promoted before anyone else, and his pioneering ideas and approaches to art. Āboliņš is a prime example of the importance of horizontal art history, of remembering that it was not simply the center that affected the development of modern and contemporary art but that those in the so-called peripheries also played a significant role.[1]