I thought that communist art was just propagandistic realism. I didn't think they trusted nor understood abstraction and that they thus clamped down on it. But perhaps that isn't the ACLU's take. Of course, like the bad writing of academia, the more obscure contemporary art, the better the artists think it is. Right...
It is too bad that so many art schools are filled theoretical postmodern "bleep" because that is what is "in." Robert Hughes, Time critic and author, once said that as many artists graduate from art school each year as there were working in Florence the entire 15th century.
The main thing I saw as an art student was a bunch of kids with no real talent, artistically. Too many people dealing with "this is what I felt a gourd looked like" instead of "this is a gourd."
I once spent 2-1/2 months working on a drawing of a female vampire (what would you expect from a 19yr old male?). She is a character from a story I hope to one day write. Anyways, I showed the picture to one of my instructors, his reply was..."well...technically drawn it's very good, probably better than I could do. But you can't go anywhere with this... it's "poster art", It's not real art. You'll never make a living doing poster art." I felt so defeated. That's a hell of a thing to say to an aspiring artist IMHO.