Newsletter of the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University
Moscow-born artist Vitaly Komar, co-founder of Sots Art, a fusion of Soviet pop and conceptual art and a pioneer in the multi-stylistic post-Modernism movement, will present "My Experience as an Artist in Russia and the West" at Texas A&M, 5 p.m. Dec. 3 in room C105 of the Langford Architecture Center.
Komar's lecture, which will follow a day of visiting classes at the college, is part of the college's Artist-in-Residence program, sponsored by the college, the Department of Visualization and the Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts at Texas A&M.
The artist will discuss his 30-year collaboration with fellow Moscow native Alexander Melamid, his late 1970s work with Andy Warhol and other highlights of his artistic career, which began at an art school in Moscow in 1958.
Creating art in the Sots concept, which also contains elements of Dadaism and Social Realism, Komar and Melamid collaborated on many projects, ranging from painting and performance to installation, public sculpture, photography, music and poetry.
For what authorities called a "distortion of Soviet reality," the artists were expelled from their native country's artist's union in 1973.
"Double Self-Portrait," a piece by Komar and Melamid that resembled dual portraits of Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, was destroyed in what became known as 1974's "Bulldozer Exhibition" during which police use bulldozers and a water cannon to break up an unapproved exhibit by Moscow avant-garde artists.
The duo emigrated to Israel in 1977 and moved to New York in 1978. After ending their partnership in 2003, they began working on solo projects.
Komar and Melamid's work can be seen online at www.komarandmelamid.org/.
For more information on Komar’s artist in residence visit, contact Carol Lafayette, associate professor of visualization, at lurleen@viz.tamu.edu or 979.845.5691.
- Posted: Sept. 3, 2010-
Contact: Phillip Rollfing, prollfing@archone.tamu.edu or 979.458.0442.
