Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F088809-0038, Berlin, East Side Gallery

Often referred to as “Soviet Pop Art”, Sots Art or soc art (russian: Соц-арт, short for Socialist Art) originated in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

in the early 1970s as a reaction against the official aesthetic doctrine of the state—

socialist realism Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ch ...

, which was marked by reverential depictions of workers, peasants living happily in their communes, and, during

Stalinism Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the the ...

, a young, fit

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...

. Vitaly Komar and

Alexander Melamid Alexander Melamid (russian: Алекса́ндр Дани́лович Мелами́д) (born July 14, 1945) is a Russian-born Conceptualist and performance artist. Melamid was born into a Jewish family of , a Soviet historian living in Moscow. ...

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 Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in ...

, sots art capitalized on the imagery of the

Socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

mass culture. According to

Arthur Danto Arthur Coleman Danto (January 1, 1924 – October 25, 2013) was an American art critic, philosopher, and professor at Columbia University. He was best known for having been a long-time art critic for '' The Nation'' and for his work in philosop ...

, Sots Art's attack on official styles is similar in intent to American pop art and German

capitalist realism The term "capitalist realism" has been used, particularly in Germany, to describe commodity-based art, from Pop Art in the 1950s and 1960s to the commodity art of the 1980s and 1990s. When used in this way, it is a play on the term "socialist r ...

.Arthur Coleman Danto, ''After the End of Art: contemporary art and the pale of history'', Princeton University Press, 1997, p126.

Artists

Grisha Bruskin Grisha Bruskin (born October 21, 1945) is a Russian artist known as a painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He was born in Moscow. Between 1963 and 1968, he studied at the Moscow Textile Institute (Art Department). In 1969, he became a member of ...

Eric Bulatov Erik Bulatov (russian: Эрик Владимирович Булатов; born September 5, 1933 in Sverdlovsk) is a Russian artist, who was raised in Moscow. His father was a communist party official who died in World War II at Pskov, and his m ...

* Vitaly Komar *

Alexander Kosolapov Alexander Kosolapov (russian: Александр Семёнович Косолапов) (born January 1, 1943, in Moscow, Russia) is a Russian-American sculptor and painter. He immigrated to the United States in 1975 and has since lived and worke ...

* Igor Novikov (painter) *

Dmitri Prigov Dmitri Aleksandrovich Prigov (russian: Дми́трий Алекса́ндрович При́гов, 5 November 1940 in Moscow – 16 July 2007 in Moscow Leonid Sokov Leonid Sokov (russian: Леони́д Петро́вич Со́ков, October 11, 1941, Tver region – April 4, 2018 in Copake, New York, United States) was a Russian nonconformist artist and sculptor. He primarily lived and worked in New Yo ...

Artists

References

Further reading