Sots Art

Often referred to as “Soviet Pop Art”, Sots Art or soc art (Russian: Соц-арт, short for Socialist Art) originated in the Soviet Union in the early 1970s as a reaction against the official aesthetic doctrine of the state— socialist realism, which was marked by reverential depictions of workers, peasants living happily in their communes, and, during Stalinism, a young, fit Joseph Stalin.

Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid are credited with the invention of the term "Sots Art"; in an analogy with the Western pop art movement, which incorporated the kitchy elements of the Western mass culture, sots art capitalized on the imagery of the Socialist mass culture.[1]

According to Arthur Danto, Sots Art's attack on official styles is similar in intent to American pop art and German capitalist realism.[2]

Artists

gollark: Nobody has to know.
gollark: Just make them assume that it was approved at some point but they forgot or weren't paying attention.
gollark: Oh yes, good idea, social engineering.
gollark: Encrypt the paper so they can't see them either.
gollark: Encrypt the flyers so the administration can't read them.

References

  1. "The Post-Utopian Art of Vitaly Komar & Aleksandr Melamid (Sots Art: 1970s, '80s)".
  2. Arthur Coleman Danto, After the End of Art: contemporary art and the pale of history, Princeton University Press, 1997, p126. ISBN 0-691-00299-1

Further reading

  • Regina Khidekel, It’s the Real Thing: Soviet Sots-art and American Pop-art. Minnesota University Press, 1988
  • Forbidden Art: The Postwar Russian Avant-Garde, Distributed Art Publishers, Inc.,1999, ISBN 978-1881616917
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