When the going gets rough — when the students start throwing paving stones and the mounted police swing their truncheons — sometimes what you need is some time in the country . In Britain, Richard Long started making art out of walks in the fields of Wiltshire; in West Germany, Sigmar Polke slipped away to a farm outside Düsseldorf, making lots of films and ingesting lots of hallucinogens. In 1968 and 1969, students barricaded the lecture halls at the elite Tokyo University, and at Tama Art University, the students locked themselves in their classrooms and studios and demanded mass leadership resignations. Some young artists found their places in the daily demonstrations and the antiwar and antinuclear movements. For others, the best way forward was to get out.

Source: New York Times April 11, 2019 09:00 UTC