Lot 53: VITALY KOMAR AND ALEXANDER MELAMID

VITALY KOMAR AND ALEXANDER MELAMID B. 1943 AND B. 1945 THE RED FLAG (FROM NOSTALGIC SOCIALIST REALISM SERIES) signed and dated 1983 oil and tempera on canvas 228.3 by 163cm. 96 by 80in.

Carter Ratcliff, Komar and Melamid, New York 1988, p. 149, no. 144, illustrated
Eric Hobsbawm, The Communist Manifesto, New York 1998, illustrated incorrectly in colour on the cover

Van Straaten Gallery, Chicago
The Refco Collection
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

As the initiators of the Sots Art movement of the 1970s, Komar and Melamid have earned an international reputation as artists whose work is both fearless and infused with a biting, satirical wit. They have essentially reinvented and inverted the Western Pop Art movement, whereby, instead of poking fun at an overwhelmingly consumerist society, they mock one that has conversely been starved of luxury goods and overburdened with socialist ideals.

Where Warhol celebrated consumer culture in his art, Komar and Melamid could be seen to deride Socialist propaganda, but to make such a claim would be an oversimplification. There is an increasing sense of 'homelessness' that pervades their work, as they strive to recreate the history of their childhood. History, for these two artists, is in itself a study in perception and interpretation, and as such provides the perfect canvas for their artistic ideas.

Red Flag is an iconic work from the Nostalgic Socialist Realism series, in which the artists satirised Soviet culture by adopting the ideological style of Socialist Realism, founded on a spirit of unfailing optimism. In Red Flag the canvas is almost completely filled by a rippling flag alluding to the Soviet banner. There is a celebration of Russian history and culture, whatever an individual's interpretation of that history may be. Full of contradictions, the work refuses to shy away from the paradox at the centre of their own lives - the reality of living within an ideological landscape. There is an acceptance, not of Stalin's tyranny, but of what it means to have lived with Stalinist ideals. An expression of nostalgia does not condone such a regime, but we are asked to question whether such ideologies were, or ever could have been fully realised.