Alexander Melamid (russian: Алекса́ндр Дани́лович Мелами́д) (born July 14, 1945) is a

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

n-born Conceptualist and

performance artist Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

. Melamid was born into a Jewish family of , a Soviet historian living in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

. In his early life, he attended the Stroganov Art Institute, where he collaborated with Vitaly Komar in the Russian

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 ...

movement (a parallel to the Western pop art movement). Known as a cynical

Social Realist Social realism is the term used for work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers and filmmakers that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structure ...

, Melamid began collaborating with Komar in the late 1960s; the two emigrated together to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

from the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

in 1977. The duo created collaborative works as "

Komar and Melamid Komar and Melamid (pronunciation: ''Kómar and Melamíd'') is a tandem team of Russian-born American conceptualist artists Vitaly Komar (born 1943) and Alexander Melamid (born 1945). In an artists' statement they said that "even if only one of us ...

". In 2003, the two artists decided to go their separate ways. Around this time, Melamid's first-born son, Dan, introduced him to the world of hip-hop, which included his clients and close friends Whoo Kid and 50 Cent. Melamid was intrigued by hip-hop society because of its rich history and world appeal, and began to paint the hip-hop portraits that have become his first solo exhibition since splitting with Komar, on display at the

Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) is a non-collecting contemporary art museum located in Detroit. MOCAD is housed in a building, a converted former auto dealership designed by architect Andrew Zago. The architecture of the building ...

. Alexander is currently working in Chelsea, NYC at his Art Healing Ministry. Recent new series of works include "Heaven and Hell" and "The Art of Plumbing."The Art of Plumbing
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1945 births Artists from Moscow Russian performance artists American people of Russian-Jewish descent Social realist artists Living people 20th-century Russian painters Russian male painters Russian contemporary artists American male painters American contemporary painters 20th-century Russian male artists {{US-painter-stub