The irreverent duo who thumbed their noses at the Soviet Union and the US art world

The Russian artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid (aka ‘Komar and Melamid’) began their art careers generating state-sanctioned Socialist Realism – that is to say, the kind of reverent, red-tinted imagery that comes to mind when you picture Soviet propaganda posters. Soon, however, they found themselves enmeshed in a subversive underground art movement, creating ironic, subversive and often tragicomic imagery that resulted in one of their exhibitions being literally bulldozed by their totalitarian government. Created on the occasion of a retrospective of their work at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University in New Jersey in 2023, this short film tells the story of how the duo rose to prominence in the early 1970s before ultimately falling out over artistic and philosophical differences. In doing so, the US-based director Sam Vladimirsky explores how two rather self-serious institutions – the Soviet government and the US art world – responded to their provocations, and the irrepressible nature of creativity and expression.