Larisa Zvezdochetova

David A. Ross, ed., Between Spring and Summer: Soviet Conceptual Art in the Era of Late Communism, Tacoma, Wash.: Tacoma Art Museum; Boston, Mass.: The Institute of Contemporary Art; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990, exhibition catalogue
Maria Serebrjakova, Natalja Turnova, and Larisa Rezun-Zvezdotsjetova, A Chicken Is no Bird, Amsterdam: Picaron Editions/Circ

Larisa Zvezdochetova uses imagery derived from Soviet mass culture, primarily kitsch objects that were typically found in the interiors of the pre-fabricated apartment buildings of post-war Soviet cities. They include cheap carpets with deer motifs, medallions with sports themes, embroideries, synthetic brocade and imitation velvet, and other items of mass consumption. These articles were symbols of comfort and prosperity for ordinary Soviet citizens of the post-war years, and by using them in her work Zvezdochetova imbues them with an ironic beauty.

Her art also comments on the popular aesthetic conventions of the era, including the passion for eclecticism and the tendency to overdecorate. In the artist's words, "I am interested in how style and taste change over the course of time. Every period has its own style, its own aesthetic. What interests me most is the process of change, the transformation from one form to another, from one style to another. I am an archeologist of our time; I pick up stuff from the street, collect things from our daily lives. These things are around us every day of our lives, and it is exactly daily life that influences your taste, your consciousness."