Conceptual works :

 1976


Click on a fragment to see the whole picture
 

   

Untitled.
 210*120 cm, 1976
     From the artist's oral comments:
     This big work is another “document of epoch”, or “TV-work”. Magazine and newspaper photos and fragments of articles are put on narrow gauze strips. In this stream of visual information faces and events symbolic for the 1970s are recognizable: John and Jackie Kennedy, Rostropovich, Mohammad Ali, Jean-Paul Sartre, Vyssotsky, Evgueny Evtushenko, war in Vietnam etc. These narrow strips can be easily interchanged, diminishing or enlarging the width of an image.
There is also a double bottom: in a lot of photos a picture of Alexander Dubcek is hidden, in manner to make it difficultly findable at a superficial glance. It is enough to mix the strips, and the Dubcek’s photo is lost again. In case of a possible house-check these strips were easy to hide, by “piling them under bed and calling them scrap paper.”		 Context:
Alexander Dubcek (1921-1992), in 1968 – first secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee, leader of “Prague spring”. After the invasion of Warsaw pact troops in Czechoslovakia, Dubcek was discharged from governing the country. Later he was expelled from Communist Party. In the USSR even his name was prohibited. Until his retirement, Dubcek worked in a Slovakian forestry operation. In 1989, after the regime fall, he became President of the Czechoslovak Parliament.
 

   

Ready-figures
Series. 1976
     From the artist's oral comments:
     Soviet posters with victorious figures of Soviet management system superiority: the growth of grain or shoes or space ship production compared to the 1913, or 1939 or other years level. These posters, senseless themselves, were printed by the millions, being the evidence of our stupidity, tons of wasted paper and paint. Here they are deprived of their legends and framed. The idea is absolutely simple: the lack of explanation creates an anti-world of figures which correspond to nothing and this make a spectator nervous.
     The series title is a reference to the Duchamp’s “Ready-mades”.
 		  

 

Classifieds
2 sheets. 112*62 cm.
1976.

     From the artist's notes (on another work):
     Various street announcements, an immanent part of Soviet epoch. I could do them by dozens, but 7-8 sheets are sufficient. For example, "the WoWa participants are invited to receive their food rations". One of the old veterans of World War II was resentful, “I am not a WoWa participant!”. But for a girl-typist this abbreviation was easier and faster to type. Photocopiers were prohibited. There is not only the abbreviationt WoWa, but also strips of a slim cigarette paper. Hard to read, but at one time 6-8 carbon copies could be obtained.
     Well, I should stop talking like an art critic or so. It is just an artwork, nothing more.
     But the spirit of the times!

  

"Revolt in Mexico"
38*48 cm. 1976.
     From the artist's notes (1980s):
     It’s about the protest by black sportsmen at the Olympic Games (black-gloved fists held up in the air). Those who saw this picture did not understand it (probably, they didn’t know about these events or forgot them). But if just this very theme isn't effective, it means that this work is not needed.		 Context:
In the medal award ceremony of the 1968, during the play of the American national anthem, black American athletes Tommy Smith and John Carlos rose their black-gloved fists in protest against the discrimination of black people in America. Smith rose his right fist (symbol of "Black Power") and Carlos rose his left fist (for Black unity in America).
 
1968 1969 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1979 1980
1981 1982 1983 1986 1988 1989 1992 1993 1996