Installation Shots From: Gaiety Is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union
Installation Shots From: Gaiety Is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union
Installation Shots From: Gaiety Is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union
Installation Shots From: Gaiety Is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union
Installation Shots From: Gaiety Is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union

Alexander Kosolapov

SELECTED WORKS BY Alexander Kosolapov

Alexander Kosolapov
LENIN AND COCA-COLA

1982

Canvas, acrylic

117х188

Alexander Kosolapov
RED VENUS

1986

Canvas, oil

117 х 157

Alexander Kosolapov
MALEVICH - BLACK SQUARE

1987

Canvas, oil

119,5х173

Alexander Kosolapov

2005

142,1 х 119,3 (152,5 х 129,5 with thr frame)

Alexander Kosolapov's BIOGRAPHY

“I was always drawn to social and informational products. I like posters, advertisements, comics, political slogans. I use the shared language of modern mass culture, addressed to an anonymous viewer… All these elements (of mass culture) are reflected in my Sots-art and pop-art works.”

Born in 1943
Alexander Semyonovich Kosolapov graduated from the sculptural department of the Stroganov Art School in 1969. He has worked in the realm of Sots-art since 1972, combining the visual products of the communist ideology with the products of western mass-culture in his works. In 1975 he immigrated to the US. He has taken part in many artistic exhibitions in a number of European countries and in the United States. The artist’s works have been exhibited in the world’s leading museums and private collections. The artistic forms created by Kosolapov, including “Lenin and Coca-Cola,” “Marlboro Malevich,” “Lenin Mickey Mouse,” have been widely distributed and mass produced into souvenirs and posters.

From 1999-2000 he worked in New York and in Moscow. Kosolapov’s work, which is connected with the use of religious symbols, became cause for attacks from the Russian church organizations against the artist and the organizers of his exhibitions.

“This work (Lenin and Coca Cola) is a collage of a profile of Lenin and the Coca-Cola logo. The reassuring motto of Coca-Cola, “It’s the Real Thing,” also relates to Lenin, and these two are becoming mutually replaceable, like the products of mass culture. In creating this radical collage, the artist implied that despite the conflicts of the relationship between the two systems, the distinctive signs of which are its symbols, their main goal - to convince the population in the authenticity and honesty of their goods – undoubtedly coincide.” Margarita Tupitsina.