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Kosolapov Alexander |
| “I was always drawn to social and informational products. I like posters, advertisements, comics, political slogans. I use the shared language of modern mass culture, addressed to an anonymous viewer… All these elements (of mass culture) are reflected in my Sots-art and pop-art works.” |
Born in 1943 |
Alexander Semyonovich Kosolapov graduated from the sculptural department of the Stroganov Art School in 1969. He has worked in the realm of Sots-art since 1972, combining the visual products of the communist ideology with the products of western mass-culture in his works. In 1975 he immigrated to the US. He has taken part in many artistic exhibitions in a number of European countries and in the United States. The artist’s works have been exhibited in the world’s leading museums and private collections. The artistic forms created by Kosolapov, including “Lenin and Coca-Cola,” “Marlboro Malevich,” “Lenin Mickey Mouse,” have been widely distributed and mass produced into souvenirs and posters.
From 1999-2000 he worked in New York and in Moscow. Kosolapov’s work, which is connected with the use of religious symbols, became cause for attacks from the Russian church organizations against the artist and the organizers of his exhibitions.
“This work (Lenin and Coca Cola) is a collage of a profile of Lenin and the Coca-Cola logo. The reassuring motto of Coca-Cola, “It’s the Real Thing,” also relates to Lenin, and these two are becoming mutually replaceable, like the products of mass culture. In creating this radical collage, the artist implied that despite the conflicts of the relationship between the two systems, the distinctive signs of which are its symbols, their main goal - to convince the population in the authenticity and honesty of their goods – undoubtedly coincide.” Margarita Tupitsina.
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The artist's work can be found in the following museums and collections: | | | | | | First Slogan The State Tretyakov Gallery | Lenin Contemporary Art Museum | Family Museum «Drugoe Iskusstvo» |
Museums in Russia:
- The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
- The State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg
- The Other Art Museum
- The Contemporary Art Museum
Museums overseas:
- Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria
- Graphic Cabinet, State Museums of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- B'nai B'rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum, Washington, USA
- Duke University Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina, USA
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA
- Modern Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia
- Wilhelm-Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen, Germany
- Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA
- Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
- New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, USA
- New York Public Library, New York, USA
- Museum of Modern Art, Passau, Germany
- Graphicstudio, South Florida, Tampa, USA
- Kolodzei Art Foundation, Highland Park, New Jersey, USA
Private collections:
- Evelyn Weiss Collection, Cologne, Germany
- Chase Manhattan Bank Collection, New York, USA
- Morton Hornick Collection, New York, USA
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