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Liudmila Limanskaya
Sots Art, which appeared in the 1970s as one of the areas of alternative art,
became a form of countering the official ideology of the USSR. By transforming
the motifs and images of Soviet art and political propaganda, Sots Art unmasked,
in a grotesque and shocking way, their true meaning, trying to free the viewer
from ideological stereotypes. The ironic images of Sots Art replaced the stylistic
opposition of the caricatures of the 1930s—1950s that was based on opposing the
idealised image of the builder of communism to the grotesque image of a Western
bourgeois. In the works of Sots Art artists these two opposed sides ironically
overlapped, which resulted in a reorientation of the semiotic code. Symbols and
signs used to glorify communist ideals became elements of a caricature, a means of
deconstructing conventional meanings.
The chapter is devoted to the psychoanalytical issues of the deconstruction of
images of socialist ideals of the 1930s—1950s in Russian Sots Art. Sots Art is an
ironic title for the artistic movement that used a mixture of signs from the visual
semiotic arsenal of the social realism and pop art movements of the 1990s—2000s. By
comparing the idealisation of the image of Lenin in Soviet art of the 1930s—1950s,
with its grotesque interpretation in Sots Art works of the 1990s, it appears to be
interesting to trace the functions of grotesque and caricature in the deconstruction
of the canons of socialist realism. Therefore, the role of the regression mechanism in
the transformation of the ideals of socialist realism into laughable images becomes
of special interest.
In psychoanalytical theory, regression is one of the forms of psychological adap¬
tation in a situation of conflict or alarm, when a person unconsciously resorts to
earlier, less mature and less adequate behavioural examples and primitive images
which seem to guarantee protection.
The widespread appearance of comic genres in Sots Art during the time of
perestroika reflect the reaction of artists to social instability, when the individual
and society turn to the language of the less mature, primitive cultures and use
shocking genres in art involving forms of deviant behaviour aimed at ridiculing the
ethic standards and ideals of the past. An aestheticisation of deviant behaviour and
shocking images is perceived as protection from the suppressing canons of totalitar¬
ian art (Limanskaya & Shvets 2014: 710).
‘The use of image simplification and deformation—typical methods of the gro¬
tesque and caricature—and recourse to the traditions of primitive cultures indicate
a culture’s need for psychological regress and the response of art to the conflict of
ideologies. In the case of Soviet and post-Soviet ideologies, different comic genres
were used in imaginative ways. In the paintings and sculptures of 1970s and 1980s,
images of the social and political jokes were widely used; in the 1990s a need for
a sarcastic demonstration of a critical attitude towards the ideals of socialist realism
were displayed, manifesting in acts of direct aggression aimed at the destruction of
the memory and monuments of the past. Actions seen as symbols of a new revolu¬
tionary ideology removed or transferred the monuments of the past.