About the author

Komar and Melamid are the main representatives of Postmodernism in post-war Russian Art. They are ranked among the top five most influential figures in 20^th century Russian Art. Since 1978 they have been living and working in New York.

Komar and Melamid are the creators of the Sots Art movement and the authors of the Sots Art Manifesto (1972). The basis of their recognisable style is a combination of the principles of American Pop Art, European Dadaism and the symbolism of Socialist Realism as used in Soviet propaganda. In their late period, the artists contrived the principles of conceptual eclecticism. In 1973, the artists were among the first in the USSR to master the installation genre, creating the work "Paradise". In 1974, Komar and Melamid suggested the idea of the Bulldozer Exhibition to Oskar Kabin — it became a major event in post-war Russian Art, which publicly demonstrated the existence of unofficial Russian artists and resonated throughout the world.

From 1976 to 2004 the artists were represented by the famous American gallery owner Ronald Feldman. In 1978, Komar and Melamid bought the souls of Andy Warhol and Norton Dodge as part of their art project "We Buy and Sell Souls". Presently, the project documentation is in the Pompidou Centre Collection.

The works of Komar and Melamid are in America’s most prominent Art museums: MoMA, the Metropolitan, Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim Museum.

In the UK’s leading museums — the Victoria & Albert Museum and the TATE Modern. In Holland — the Stedelijk Museum. In Austria — the Albertina Museum. In Germany — the Ludwig Museum. In France — the Pompidou Centre. In Russia — the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art.