Komar & Melamid: A Lesson in History

Tracing a subversive artistic partnership that lambasted Soviet officialdom and American capitalism.

Among the most compelling figures in the history of conceptual art, the Russian-American artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid built their reputations by challenging viewers with controversial, witty, and ironic art. Komar & Melamid: A Lesson in History offers a comprehensive view of this trailblazing duo, who worked together from the late 1960s through 2004.

In response to the overproduction of ideology that rendered Communist slogans and symbols nonsensical, Komar & Melamind founded the Sots Art movement in the early 1970s in the Soviet Union. Incorporating elements of pop art and Dadaism, Sots Art aimed to expose the absurdities of official art, which was limited to socialist realism.