Semyon Faibisovich

Good Spirits is part of the ‘Standing in Line' series which Faibisovich worked on during the late 1980s. In this series, the artist continued to focus on the mundane aspects of late Soviet reality, in this case, queuing for alcohol. While queuing came to define everyday life in the Soviet Union, alcohol queues became a particularly widespread phenomenon after the introduction of the prohibition law in 1985.

In Good Spirits, the sunlit view of the street stands in stark contrast with the dark-grey clothing of the male figures filling the foreground. While at first glance the scene appears cheerful, the men's unhealthy physique highlights its overall ambiguity. As Faibisovich noted in a recent interview coinciding with his retrospective exhibition at the State Tretyakov Gallery, in his works he is interested in conveying ‘the complicated, conflicting impressions’ which reality evokes in him. He is keen to render it all at once, ‘happiness, sadness, disgust and awe, beauty and horror – as it is in life…’