Leonid Sokov - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Friday, October 12, 2007 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Acquired directly from the artist.

  • Exhibited

    New York, Museum of the Yeshiva University, Remembrance: Russian Post-Modern Nostalgia, September 10, 2003 – February 2, 2004; New York, Alexandre Gertsman Contemporary Art, Russian Art: 1980 – 2005; October 15 – November 15, 2006; New York, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, 2007 Annual Tretyakov Ball, November 8, 2007

  • Catalogue Essay

    A constructivist element stemming from the Russian avant-garde and uniquely interwoven with folk-art underlies the Sots-Art of Leonid Sokov. The tradition of the Russian “lubok” (cheap popular print), articles of peasant culture, are framed in artistic compositions whose formal structure goes back to the tradition set by Tatlin. A strict constructivist base, sometimes with motorized movement, creates a unique background for Sots-Art ironic reminiscences. This is a unique blend of formalist aesthetics and ancient popular “life in action.” His works are not merely parody, for they display the down-to-earth and sharp humor of the “lubok.” They are iconographic both in terms of artistic stylistics and in the political and social “semiotic” of the individuals portrayed, who often unite two cultures - Russian and American, like it is shown in Marilyn and Stalin. This Post-Modernist paradox is here highlighted by a blend of decorative stagecraft with a modernist constructivist interpretation.

311

Marilyn and Stalin

1990
Oil, gold leaf and photo collage on canvas.
64 x 84 1/8 in. (162.6 x 213.7 cm).
Signed and dated “Sokov 1990” lower right.

Estimate
£40,000 - 60,000 ‡♠

Sold for £36,000

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

Evening Sale
13 October 2007, 4pm
London