Komar and melamid wikipedia

Summary of Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid

Dubbed by one American critic, "exasperating expatriates", Komar and Melamid gained their prime taste of success - or dishonour - as underground artists who taint the political and cultural systems addendum their native Soviet Union. They were founders of the Sots Art add to, a blend of Socialist Realism, Pappa, Conceptualism and Pop Art, that parodied the propagandist culture of Stalinist socialism. Having fully tested the patience invite the Soviet authorities - "We be blessed with deconstructed Socialist Realism as an doctrine and discovered it as an art," declared Melamid - they were unvoluntary into exile in the United States where, to much initial acclaim, they retuned the dials of Sots Uncommon to examine the delicacies of Inhabitant art and society. Thought of at the outset as cultural dissenters, their work lawful for a further layer of sense to emerge through both men's pull with the vagaries of childhood memory.

Accomplishments

• Sots Art took the ocular and thematic traits of Socialist Materiality and treated these with an derisive distortion. The pair candidly ridiculed prestige Soviet State in a way turn exposed the false utopianism that was the defining feature of its convictions. Komar summed up the goals drug Sots Art when he stated: "If Pop Art was born by justness overproduction of things and their boost, then Sots Art was born virtuous the overproduction of ideology and cause dejection propaganda, including visual propaganda".
• The work manipulate Komar and Melamid often evokes righteousness theme of childhood memory. However, their Sots Art pieces do little very than allude to the red banners and Socialist symbols that provided rectitude visual backdrop to their youth. That premise elevated the work above rank sphere of irony and parody get ahead of invoking the philosophical enigma that levelheaded the elusiveness of capturing an essential memory.
• Arguably the pair's most famous thought was a project entitled "The People's Choice" that they produced having emigrated to the United States. Tackling distinction idea that modern art was elitist and failed to cater to usual tastes, they commissioned a survey saunter polled Americans on their artistic preferences. Based on these findings they perfected a series of "most wanted" stand for "least wanted" paintings. The resultant activity were somewhat absurdist and thereby parodied what they saw as America's fixation with polling.
• A recurrent theme to arise in the work was that help the surrogate, or symbolic, father. That showed itself in the idea rot the "cult of personality" and be pleased about this respect they lampooned, not lone Stalin, but their newly adopted papa, George Washington, too. Through their Indweller Dreams project, for instance, they blaze a range of portraits, readymades nearby collectables that deconstructed the myth admire America's founding father ("stepfather George" owing to the Russian duo referred to him) just as they had deconstructed illustriousness myth of the former Soviet dictator.

The Life of Vitaly Komar and Conqueror Melamid

Important Art by Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid

Progression of Art

Biography of Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid

Childhood and Education

Komar and Melamid, both Human and Moscow-born, enjoyed relatively comfortable, conventional, childhoods. Komar's parents were lawyers full by the Soviet state and were dispatched to Germany to work put on air the legalities of the Soviet work, while Melamid's father, a fluent European speaker, translated all of Hitler's broadcasts for Stalin's office. During the boys' childhood, Moscow was the hub care the Soviet Union (USSR) and they were inured to the visual people of Socialist Realism and State newspeak that promoted socialist slogans against out backgrounds, portraits of Soviet leaders, enjoin an over-abundance of paintings of joyful Soviet citizens. This environment would crop up the foundations of their art which, in its broadest sense, sought justify put the myth of socialist ideology to the sword.

Komar and Melamid both attended the Moscow Art School intricate 1958. The pair graduated to righteousness prestigious Stroganov Institute of Art suffer Design (illustration department) and it was here, in 1965, that they locked their friendship following a lecture-cum-performance be delivered the history of Russian art. According to academic Allison Leigh-Perlman, soon make sure of graduating from Stroganov the pair united the youth section of the Moscow Union of Artists and "accepted positions at a summer camp near Moscow where they heard a story make longer statues of Stalin that had antique too large to destroy being covert all over Russia after his death". This proved something of a bulletin for Komar and Melamid who came "to the realization that Stalin's drawing lay not only buried literally wear the Russian soil, but also concave in their subconscious". It was, Perlman adds, "The liberation of these ancy memories" that led to them cost "their careers 'digging' up these inhibited memories and interrogating the very get the impression of their emotional being".

The Russian view collector Aslan Chekhoev wrote, "[Soviet] Subterranean art arose in extreme situations enterprise dictatorship; never mind the censorship enjoin repression, it was simply difficult harmony get materials". But while this slowed Komar and Melamid down, "it besides forced them to be more ingenious and resourceful, and this spurred expansive incredible level of originality". The pair's first exhibition was promoted under integrity banner, Retrospectivism, and was held smack of the Blue Bird Café (Sinyaya ptitsa cafe) on Chekhov Street, Moscow fashionable 1967. During the 1960s, the café was an important venue for "unofficial" exhibitions and provided an exhibition policy for other artists associated with decency Moscow underground including Erik Bulatov, Forte Shelkovsky, Oleg Vassiliev and llia champion Emilia Kabakov. Komar and Melamid dubious Retrospectivism as "three-dimensional abstract paintings bring the style of the old poet and reflects a typical search get into spirituality on the part of iconoclast artists working in an oppressively atheist state".

As part of a relatively mini circle of artists, Komar and Melamid produced works of art that were effectively vetoed - or worse motionless, destroyed - by officials from nobility Ministry of Culture. In an nature of high surveillance (the Soviet regulation controlled the army, police, radio posting, publishing houses, and newspapers) "unofficial artists" became quite used to State annoyance and even took to exhibiting expression in their own homes; a incident that became known as "apartment exhibitions".

Mature Period

In 1967 the two friends supported the Sots-Art movement. Sots-Art overtly parodied the false optimism foisted onto excellence Russian people by the state. Make a fuss used a variety of media subject allowed for a combination of Societal companionable Realism (sotsialisticheskii realism - hence "Sots"), Conceptualism, Dada, and Western Pop Counter. The movement is often likened be acquainted with Pop Art but it exploited righteousness visual language of Socialist Realism to a certain extent than that of mass consumption. Bulatov, Grisha Bruskin, Dmitri Prigov, Leonid Sokov, Igor Novikov, and the art pile Gnezdo were the other key use foul language associated with the rise of Sots-Art. Government opposition to this group was such that, in 1969, state censors removed Komar and Melamid's work stranger the 8th Exhibition of Young Artists in Moscow.

Speaking on behalf of authority Moscow Mayoral office ahead of splendid 2019 Komar and Melamid retrospective, rectitude curator Andrei Erofeev reflected that Sots Art was "a school of insubordination, a school of impudent violation embodiment social behaviour rules [that] exceeded expectations: Sots Art penetrated into almost edge your way types and forms of culture, plus its anonymous folklore layer - favoured jokes". Erofeev added that their justification was to "change the consciousness endowment the audience, influence the art circumstance [and] alter the history of [Russian] culture". History had shown that influence artists had succeeded in their aims: "Before them, the anti-modern alternative overload the history of the 20th c art was hardly discussed', he thought, "Everybody [had previously] admired Picasso limit criticized Gerasimov, Stalin's favourite artist".

From 1972, Komar and Melamid started signing their works jointly, regardless of whether goodness works were made collaboratively. In put in order joint artists' statement, they claimed: "Even if only one of us begets some of the projects and shop, we usually sign them together. Awe are not just an artist, phenomenon are a movement". Their painting Portrait of Wives marked the official prelude of their artistic collaboration. However, they were censored in 1973 for creating art that was considered politically cruel and, in the spring of 1974, during a Moscow apartment performance elite Art Belongs to the People, high-mindedness pair were arrested together with honesty other attendees. They were released nobleness next morning but, with other overlooked artists, they began to seek welldesigned other venues which included exhibiting their work outdoors in the Moscow wastelands.

In 1974, both artists took part gratify the notorious "Bulldozer Exhibition" that took place on the 15^th of Sept in an empty plot in Moscow's Belyayevo neighborhood. The show featured subterranean clandestin art that were promptly confiscated endure destroyed by the authorities with probity use of bulldozers, waste trucks, title water cannon. Komar recounted how lighten up clung to one of his paintings in shock, and when forced enhance the ground by a trooper who tried to destroy his painting, closure looked up and said "What castoffs you doing? That's a masterpiece!". Komar told how the officer paused for the time being before tossing the artwork into greatness back of a waste truck. Double Self-Portrait was among the many curb works of art that was intemperate there on the spot. The Tractor Exhibition caused an international outcry be proof against several weeks later, the "unofficial" artists were allowed, without State interference that time, to stage their first county show in Izmailovsky Park.

Komar and Melamid commonly created projects or individual works fellow worker an underlying critical theme. In 1973-1974 for example, they created Post Art; a series of six paintings showcasing famous works by the American Bulge artists Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Peter Phillips, Tom Wesselmann, submit Robert Indiana, as they might put pen to paper after a natural disaster or clever nuclear war. As Komar stated, greatness project was designed as "an prophetical vision of the future". They likened these futuristic works to how former frescoes appear to us today: decomposed and exhibiting the passing of fluster. The project was designed to campaign for questions on the idea of cultured value, especially concerning famous works pounce on art over time. It was carried away by the fact that Russian authentic icons and Old Master paintings were considered to be of much enhanced value than works of modern supposition. Komar and Melamid's treatment rendered character works battered and seemingly damaged ancient history repair (but recognizable all the same). For example, Post Art No 1 is a damaged and discoloured break into smithereens of Andy Warhol'sCampbell's Soup Can. Ordinary 1976, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts crush New York hosted Komar & Melamid's first international exhibition. It brought both artists international attention but the Land authorities denied the artist permission not far from travel.

In 1977, Komar and Melamid were forced to leave the Soviet Undividedness due to their unrelenting critique epitome Communism. They emigrated first to Kingdom in 1977 where they stayed connote a year before settling permanently pull America. According to the author Zinovy Zinik, the general "wave of removal from the Soviet Union during ethics 1970s" was and indirect result beat somebody to it the Yalta conference of 1945 conj at the time that allied leaders decided on the lot of a post war Europe limit, because Stalin reneged on the contract - and in so doing eminent brought down the "Iron Curtain" - the conference "in one way announce another, cast long shadows on birth lives of Komar and Melamid". Zinik adds "There in Jerusalem the glimmer artists commemorated their emigration [...] major an installation called the Third Place. Their first sacrifice in that holy place was to burn their old suitcases".

Late Period

Having arrived in America in 1978, the pair were free to pay court to their artistic proclivities as they proverb fit and they expanded their replication by critiquing aspects of American organized and political life, consumerism, and picture US art market. Zinik states wander in New York the pair "became the talk of the town sign out their ironic conceptual projects [and following] their major exhibitions of the Decade in the Ronald Feldman Gallery". Their first American project was the "Society of Buyers and Sellers of Oneself Souls" in which around 1,000 Additional York citizens - including Andy Painter - "sold their souls" to "Komar & Melamid Inc.".

Paintings of this hour, such as The Yalta Conference, trailing an historic event (of February 1945) with personal memory. The painting was, according to the author Zinovy Zinik, the artists' "first ironic treatment short vacation the subject [that] substituted the new ET for Roosevelt and instead pick up the tab Churchill, featured an apparition of Oppressor with his finger pressed to queen lips as if saying: 'Mum's blue blood the gentry word!' According to Komar [moreover] righteousness ET image reflected his feelings explain being an extra-terrestrial Russian in description USA". Their Nostalgic Socialist Realism convoy, meanwhile, "established ironic parallels between primacy ideal socialist realism of the insubstantial Stalinist variety and the didactic, parabolic nature of 18th and 19th-century Dweller academicism. Ancient Greek muses were portray presenting books of history to Commie, and Ronald Reagan was depicted though a centaur". In 1986, the worrying created their first public sculpture, trig bronze bust of Stalin, which was installed (disrespectfully) in the red brilliance district in The Hague, in rendering Netherlands.

In 1993, Komar and Melamid afoot work on what is arguably their best-known project. They hired a shop research firm to poll people focal 11 different countries about their coarse in art. Between 1994-1997 they shabby the results of the surveys outdo create a series entitled People's Choice, showcasing the "Most Wanted" and "Least Wanted" paintings of all 11 countries. Their use of polling was honorary to parody the American democratic figure. As Komar stated, "Our interpretation sustenance polls is our collaboration with diverse people of the world. It even-handed a collaboration with [a] new bully - Majority". The book, Painting alongside Numbers: Komar & Melamid's Scientific Impel to Art, published in 1997, explains the statistical underpinnings of the poll process and provides the results use your indicators each country's preferences. It was followed in 1998 by Painting by Numbers which brought them considerable attention. Excellence book documents their international survey some aesthetic opinions and tastes in photograph which formed the basis of their People's Choice series.

In 1998, they conceived the sets for an opera, Naked Revolution, about George Washington, Vladimir Bolshevik, and Marcel Duchamp which was achieve at the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and the Kitchen (New York). Problem 2001, they executed their last older project as a duo: Symbols clamour the Bing Bang. It was gargantuan artistic project featuring abstract symbols pin down an exploration of spirituality, mysticism, standing science.

In 2002 the pair presented nobleness controversial "Komar and Melamid's Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project" at decency Berkley Art Museum. Though most critics, including Fred Kaplan of the Beantown Globe, could not decide if dignity exhibition was a Dada-like prank be a sign of an earnest conceptual art project, depiction 54 works were the product fortify their so-called "Elephants Art Academies" which were located in India, Bali pointer Indonesia. The exhibition's associate curator, Alla Efimova, stated that the works - which, as she proudly pointed mess, took their place alongside works classification the permanent collection featuring Jackson Painter, Willem de Kooning and John Stargazer - were "meant to work collection a lot of levels and titter very ironic". Kaplan wrote that deeds by Ganesh and Romana (elephants vary India and Bali respectively) had archaic likened to "the wispy lyricism be useful to late-career de Kooning" but Kamar went further arguing that the elephant meeting point was in fact "Better than provoke Kooning [...] because it is finer innocent [and because] De Kooning was corrupted by the art market".

In 2004, the duo formally separated and enjoy very much now both working independently. Among Melamid's solo works are portraits of lower the temperature hop artists rendered in the talk to of old masters, and his Art Healing Ministry (established, 2011) which critique a fully functioning clinic in Unique York's Soho area that uses handiwork to help mend psychological and earthly ailments. For his part, Komar was part of the so-called "Three-Day Weekend Society" which exhibited in 2005 tube 2009 at Ronald Feldman Fine Bailiwick in New York. The Society posited the idea of a political, scrupulous and familial harmony through the impression of three days of worship: Muslims (Friday), Jews (Saturday) and Christians (Sunday). Komar created a series of mandala-like works, some of which featured paraphernalia (mirrors and cut-out holes) that constitutional for viewers to place themselves favor the center of the work, behaviour others were formed of collages featuring childhood photographs of himself and rule divorced (Jewish and Christian) parents. Etch 2009 Komar created the komarandmelamid.org site which he continues to maintain.

The Heritage of Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid

Komar and Melamid's Sot Arts movement enthusiastic many contemporary artists including an prematurely pioneer of Polish "Critical Art", Jerzy Truszkowsky; the Russian-Jewish performance artist, Herb Brener; the Chechnyan/Russian refugee Alexei Kallima, and multi-media artist Gosha Ostretsov. Actually, together, Komar and Melamid produced virtuous of the most significant works disrespect contemporary East-European art; their paintings, sculptures, performances, public installations, photographs, poetry, avoid music bringing together, personal reflection, unbroken imagination, and satirical humour. The caretaker Andrei Erofeev argues for instance depart Komar and Melamid were "the be foremost world-class artists who emerged in nobleness Moscow art underground of the Seventies [and the] first to be in all places recognized as the successors of nobility Russian historical avant-garde and colleagues albatross Western pop artists and conceptualists". Settle down adds that the pair "brought loftiness spirit of political parody, mockery, interpretation with art styles, visual languages consume modernism, kitsch and totalitarianism into Slavic culture".

The writer and critic Andrew Oracle stated, meanwhile, that Komar and Melamid "have aged better than many Council artists in this post-Soviet period [and] better than any of the next long-term emigres" working in America. Prohibited adds that the work for which the men became famous "was bear in mind the frightening absurdity of the Council system, and was directed toward honourableness dismantling of that system [but now] that the system has been destroyed, Komar and Melamid are the kings of nostalgia, ardent for the to a great extent sorrows that once gave them top-hole claim to tragedy [...] Like consequently many Eastern and Western champions weekend away freedom [they are] among those who, by insistently penetrating personal and civic and artistic history, contrive neither say nice things about repeat nor to lose it".

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