Aleksandr Kosolapov was born in Moscow in 1943. He studied at the Moscow Secondary Art School of the Surikov Institute of Art together with Sokov and Makarevich and later studied sculpture at the Moscow Higher Artistic-Industrial Institute (formerly the Stroganov Institute). Already in the 1970s in his collages, he attempted to force a collision among ideological cliches and human stereotypes of modern society. Early on, Kosolapov’s work was criticized by the Union of Artists and he was denied permission to exhibit his work.
In 1975 Kosolapov emigrated to the United States. Between 1975 and 1984 he edited A-Ya magazine in New York. He joined the Sots Art movement, which grew up in New York, focusing his work on the combination of incompatible materials such as metal and cardboard and opposing artistic trends such as Socialist Realism and Infantilism. He merges elements of folklore and fairy tales with Soviet Party documents. The artist has continued to live and work in New York.
