Leonid Sokov

"Leonid Sokov," in Renee Baigell and Matthew Baigell, Soviet Dissident Artists: Interviews after Perestroika, New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, pp. 114–119
Leonid Sokov: Sculptures, Paintings, Objects, Installations, Documents, Articles, St. Petersburg: The State Russian Museum, Palace Editions, 2000
Julia Tulovsky, "Interview with Leonid Sokov," Zimmerli Journal, July 2004–July 2005, no. 3, pp. 140–147

The East-West dichotomy is addressed throughout Leonid Sokov's oeuvre, often in the form of works juxtaposing emblems of Soviet and American society. Trained as a sculptor, Sokov studied at the Moscow Secondary Art School from 1959 to 1961 and then at the Moscow School of Art and Industry (the former Stroganov Institute) from 1964 to 1969. Like many other nonconformist artists, Sokov simultaneously pursued official and unofficial careers; on the one hand he was a member of the Artists' Union, in which capacity he produced park statuary, and on the other he organized a show of works by unofficial artists in his studio in 1976 and was among the leading practitioners of Sots Art, which turned a critical, satiric eye toward Socialist Realism and other manifestations of Soviet ideology. Sokov emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1979, and has lived in New York since 1980.

American Pop Art was an important influence on Sokov, who had a general awareness of artists like Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns by the time he returned from the army in 1964, and who in a recent interview explained that "my task is to correctly understand American popular myths from the point of view of a Russian/Soviet person and to present them in the context of my culture." In the present lots Sokov pairs one of the leading American icons--Marilyn Monroe--with two unmistakable symbols of the Soviet Union: a Russian bear and Joseph Stalin.