LEONID SOKOV | LENIN AND GORBACHEV

Acquired directly from the artist

The introduction of elements of folk art was Leonid Sokov’s major contribution to Sots Art – the Soviet version of Pop Art – ‘with the difference being that the Sots artists reflected in their work not the avalanche of images endlessly reproduced in consumerist society, but the highly hierarchical ritual imagery enforced on its citizens by the ideological state’ (K.Akinsha quoted in 'Moscow Conceptualism in Context', 2011). The movement appropriated and subverted Soviet symbols as a reaction to the official doctrine of Socialist Realism and Soviet cultural myths more generally.

Sokov graduated from the Moscow State Stroganov Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts in 1969. Having established himself as an animal sculptor, in the late 1960s the artist started developing his own style and incorporating social commentary. In 1980 Sokov left the Soviet Union and settled in the United States. Working in a new cultural context, he continued to use the symbols and images of the Soviet Union, but also included references to American culture in his work. The handmade aesthetic of Sokov’s work sets him apart not only from American Pop Art with its emphasis on mechanical reproduction, but also from the highly polished style of his compatriots such as Erik Bulatov.