Erik Bulatov, b.1933

Bulatov's drawing Flash Art makes a reference to the world's then-leading art magazine, founded in 1967 by the Italian publisher, Giancarlo Politi. In 1979, the international issue was founded by Helena Kontova. The Russian-language edition of this cutting-edge art journal, which featured Margarita and Victor Tupitsyn as guest editors, was published in 1989 - the year after Bulatov's drawing was made. Kontova has described the publication as follows: "The Russian edition was conceived of to respond to our needs in approaching a culture, which, if the expectations of perestroika are met, will be a leading figure in the 21^st century, both in Europe and in the US".

The 1989 Russian-language edition of Flash Art reproduced a drawing by Bulatov from that year entitled Perestroika, which is similar to the Flash Art drawing. Both drawings appropriate a detail from the famous sculptural group by Vera Mukhina, A Worker and a Collective Farm Woman: two hands holding a hammer and sickle. Mukhina's sculpture was initially erected on top of the Soviet Pavilion at the 1937 International Exposition in Paris, and soon became a well-known symbol of the Soviet Union. Some saw the sculpture as an image of the totalitarian society, while others considered it a poetic representation of youth and movement toward the future.