The artwork features a vibrant, abstract composition with bold colors and geometric shapes. The central figure appears to be a caricature of the renowned artist Matisse, while the background includes the name "Malevich", likely referencing the influential Russian avant-garde painter Kazimir Malevich. The overall style and technique suggest a playful, Pop Art-inspired sensibility, with a nod to the artistic legacies of both Matisse and Malevich. The work invites the viewer to consider the dynamic relationship and influences between these two pioneering modernist artists. ...
At the height of the Cold War, Alexander Kosolapov developed an approach to reappropriation and diversion, combining symbols from Soviet political propaganda with American commercial advertising.
The idealization of the masses is at work in both of those domains – for its purchasing power in the West and its productive power in the East. The misappropriation of religious symbols and major figures from western art history also enters into his practice, forming the structure of ideological systems that question him and make him react.
Kosolapov was one of the first to perform that kind of operation, which has since been taken up by many other artists and even by advertising. Yet he is still the object of censorship in Russia, and though he had been able to continue working there, at least partly, he recognizes that it has recently become impossible. We can also remark that recent events in the West have targeted artistic license and criticism of the sacred.
While Kosolapov’s practice visually resembles Pop Art, it does not have the same essence. Warhol wrote that democracy was the fruit of consumerism. Even so, caviar – as emblematic of Russia as Coca-Cola is of the USA – is a luxury product that has not modified the verticality of power but is its very image. That is the intention and subtlety of Alexander Kosolapov’s work which, by apparently simple operations, crystallizes the complex dialectic of the second half of the 20th century. ...
