Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid were born in 1943 and 1945, respectively, in Moscow, and both graduated from the Moscow Institute of Industrial Art (formerly the Stroganov Institute) in 1967. Their friendship served as the foundation for a unique creative dialogue that has continued throughout their careers. They first exhibited their collaborative work in 1965. In the early 1970s Komar and Melamid initiated an entirely new movement in Russian nonofficial art called Sots Art (a term that draws on both «social» and «socialistic»), a Soviet version of American Pop Art. These artists belong to the Postmodernist generation of Russian culture. Their art is closely based on the formulation of a metalanguage that allows for the description of a socialist ideology in a universal symbolic way.
The entire generation of the 1970s, the «semidesyatniki», was formed around the Sots Art movement. Many of those who later emigrated to the United States belonged to this movement (Sokov, Kosolapov, Lamm), as well as those who remained in Moscow (Orlov and Lebedev).
Komar and Melamid participated in the famous Bulldozer Exhibition in Moscow in 1974 and there showed their double self-portraits demonstrating the ample use of ideological clichés and Soviet symbolism in contemporary art. Their studio was home to the most radical events in alternative culture of the early 1970s.
In 1978 Komar and Melamid moved to the United States, emigrating from Russia through Israel. They continued to develop Sots Art within the framework of classical Socialist Realism. It was at this time that they began to receive international acclaim for their work. Since that time they have exhibited throughout the world and their works of art are held in several major museums and private collections. They are currently working in New York on their ongoing project, People’s Choice.
