The New York-based Russian artist Vitaly Komar (b. 1943) has much to tell. He formed his famous partnership with Alexander Melamid in Russia in the late 1960s, and the artistic team of Komar & Melamid went on to found the Sots Art movement in 1972, become world famous and emigrate to New York in 1978. Komar & Melamid translated the history of the USSR into monstrous paintings, plumbed the artistic psychology of the U.S. public, and helped elephants become Abstract-Expressionists.
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