Komar & Melamid
Gedichte über den Tod. Das Gespenst des Eklektizismus
“Bolshevism is Russian Orthodoxy minus Catholicism,” “Looking at a lobster, someone invented knight’s armor plates,” “What is anarchical synthesism? A moment of eternity or the eternity of the moment?” This catalog (edited by RealismusStudio, with poems in German and English, explanatory texts by Frank Wagner and Barbara Straka in German) is full of such short Death Poems. Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid began working together in 1965 after meeting during their studies at the Stroganov Institute of Art and Design in Moscow. Juxtaposing and interconnecting different phases of time, they mix up concepts like love, identity, faith in the future, homesickness, and religion, subjecting them to ironic scrutiny. The catalog ends with color plates showing collages and paintings by the two Russian-born artists, who emigrated to Jerusalem in 1977 before relocating to New York a year later.
Ed.: nGbK
Work group: Leonie Baumann, Kurt Jotter, Dieter Masuhr, Barbara Straka, Frank Wagner
With contributions by: Barbara Straka, Frank Wagner, Vitaly Komar, Alexander Melamid