VITALY KOMAR AND ALEXANDER MELAMID | Study for 'Knock at the Door' from 'The Nostalgic Socialist Realism' series

signed in Latin and dated '1987' l.r.pastel on card The Nostalgic Socialist Realism series is perhaps the best-known of Komar and Melamid's work: dark, sinister and yet also quite funny, these provocative and playful images lampoon the clichéd visual vocabulary of the authoritarian regime the duo had left behind when they emigrated to the United States in 1978.  But as much as the image relates to the specific horrors of the KGB practice of visiting late at night to abduct their targets, the artists were nonetheless wary of absolving non-Soviet systems. 'Fear governs the Soviet Union in the same way it does the United States', they argued: 'The KGB and Stalin are only symbols personifying an ageless social phobia...' 

Sloane Gallery, Denver 
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2005

There are pinholes to the corners and to the center of the edges. The corners are slightly worn. There is a layer of light surface dirt and handling marks and smudging in places to the edges.
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