Background

When Russia adopted Christianity in the late 10^th century, Russian artists began incorporating influences from Byzantine art and architecture into their own local traditions. Perhaps most notable are the Russian icons, or paintings of saints, with gold backgrounds. Other subject matter, including portraiture, landscapes, and history painting, became more common in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. The 19^th century saw the rise of everyday genre scenes and the graphic arts. Artistic experimentation seemed to explode in the early 20^th century, amidst a period of political and social unrest. While some artists drew upon national or folk traditions, others were inspired by artistic developments in Western Europe. Styles ranged from realism to abstraction. Artists blurred the traditional boundaries between different art forms.

Then, in 1917, when the Russian tsar was deposed and the Bolsheviks seized power, art was mobilized for its propagandistic power. In particular, posters, which could be mass-produced and therefore widely distributed, became an increasingly important medium for building the Communist state. With easy-to-understand and brightly-colored imagery, posters communicated messages about current events, political and social developments, daily life, official culture, and education that even those who were illiterate could comprehend. Poster production came under strict ideological control in 1931. Three years later, in 1934, it was announced that Socialist Realism was to be the official visual language of all the arts on public display. Socialist Realism presented idealized images of life in the Soviet Union, images that the government wanted the people to see. Artists who wanted to create other types of art had to do so covertly.

The artists who intentionally went against Socialist Realism from the late 1950s to the late 1980s are known as nonconformist artists. They incorporated a wide range of styles and addressed a variety of subject matter, especially those that were officially taboo. In the 1970s and 1980s two general trends emerged among unofficial artists: Moscow Conceptualism and Sots Art. Moscow Conceptualism is an ironic analysis of Soviet discourse. These artists combined text and imagery, experimented with performance art, photography, and installation, and emphasized documentation. Sots Art is like the Soviet response to Pop Art, with the visual languages of Soviet mass culture and Socialist Realism as the focus of parody and critique. Some architects also challenged official culture. Beginning in the late 1980s, a group of architects created utopian architectural projects on paper, a practice that became known as “Paper Architecture.” With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union, nonconformist and conceptual artists began working more openly and exhibiting internationally.

Questions

What artistic traditions did the artist draw upon? How did s/he transform them? For what reason?

What traditions was the artist challenging and/or rejecting? For what reason?

What messages does the work communicate? How does the visual imagery help to convey these messages? Are these messages visualized in obvious and easy to understand ways, or are the message more subtle and covert?

Who do you think the artist was addressing in his/her art? Why do you think this?

Do you think the artwork communicates an official government message, or at least a message that the government would have approved of? What makes you think this?

Does the artwork critique the government and official culture? If yes, what is being critiqued and how so?

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