Komar and melamid biography of william
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It is a collaboration with [a] new dictator - Majority". However, if one lingers, they may begin to feel unnerved by the deer who appear to be floating on the surface of the water; the three strollers who appear to be aimlessly wandering towards the river, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings; and the anachronistic figure of George Washington whose old-fashioned garb clashes with the more modern dress of the walkers.
His right arm holds a trumpet which he blows into the bust's left ear. By deconstructing the banner in this way, Komar and Melamid are attempting to lay bare the insidious mechanism of the propagandist poster art and its "blank" ideology.
Summary of Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid
Dubbed by one American critic, "exasperating expatriates", Komar and Melamid gained their first taste of success - or notoriety - as underground artists who subverted the political and cultural systems of their native Soviet Union.
We are not just an artist, we are a movement". Their use of polling was intended to parody the American democratic process. The pair's first exhibition was promoted under the banner, Retrospectivism, and was held at the Blue Bird Café (Sinyaya ptitsa cafe) on Chekhov Street, Moscow in 1967.
Melamid claimed that he wanted to ascertain exactly what constituted "The American People" and whether he was one of them.
Sots-Art overtly parodied the false optimism foisted onto the Russian people by the state. They both studied at the Moscow Art School from 1958–60 and the Stroganov Institute of Art and Design, graduating in 1967, the year in which they held their first joint exhibition. It represents text arranged in 14 superimposed horizontal lines and encased in double quotation marks.
The objects on offer are not, however, garments or utilities for improved functionality or convenience, but rather unattainable and immaterial qualities such as greater self-confidence, the ability to access one's own true self, and the power to achieve a spiritual connection with others. Bulatov, Grisha Bruskin, Dmitri Prigov, Leonid Sokov, Igor Novikov, and the art group Gnezdo were the other key names associated with the rise of Sots-Art.
Komar created a series of mandala-like works, some of which featured devices (mirrors and cut-out holes) that allowed for viewers to place themselves at the center of the work, while others were formed of collages featuring childhood photographs of himself and his divorced (Jewish and Christian) parents. Komar's parents were lawyers employed by the Soviet state and were dispatched to Germany to work on the legalities of the Soviet occupation, while Melamid's father, a fluent German speaker, translated all of Hitler's broadcasts for Stalin's office.
However, they were censored in 1973 for creating art that was considered politically hostile and, in the spring of 1974, during a Moscow apartment performance entitled Art Belongs to the People, the pair were arrested together with the other attendees. At the bottom right of the 166 cubes, there are a further 8 smaller white cubes where one would normally expect to find the signature of the author of a quoted text.
In 1993 Komar and Melamid hired the survey research firm Marttila & Kiley, Inc. and instructed them to ask 1001 Americans countless questions about their artistic preferences. In 1978, Komar & Melamid became United States residents.