Oleksandr Balbyshev "Recalibration of Lenin" (2021) Painting by Oleksandr Balbyshev
About the artwork
This contemporary artwork is made of Lenin's found soviet-era portrait and inspired by Chad Wys' art. The canvas is a little damaged.
Decades after the collapse of the USSR, on the territory of the former Soviet republics, it is still possible to find many artifacts imbued with that era's propaganda. All forms of art were forcibly subordinated to the advancement of the ideology of Marxism-Leninism. Everything that did not fit into this paradigm was eradicated.
Portraits of Lenin occupy a special place among those artifacts. Moreover, the number of the leader’s image created over the seven decades amazes. Many art production workshops were organized, where artists from year to year were painting copies of the leader's portraits, which were then placed in public institutions, educational institutions, offices of officials, and ordinary people's homes.
All this was done to the detriment of the free evolution of art and has stopped its development for more than half a century.
We will never know what the USSR's peoples' art could look like if it was not oppressed. We can only look at what artists in the free world were doing at this time.
Namely to this goal, Oleksandr's series of works is subordinated, who refines the found oil portraits of Lenin of Soviet times, combining them with famous works of Western artists.
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Related themes
Oleksandr Balbyshev is a contemporary Ukrainian artist. The most important themes in Balbyshev’s art are male sexuality and sensuality. Artist wants the viewer to see the realm of ideas in faces and bodies, not only a realistic image of a human. He tries to combine in his paintings realities, as visions of worlds within worlds. They show us an image of ourselves and also hint that there is more to us than we know.
Oleksandr Balbyshev is famous for transforming classical Soviet-era portraits of Lenin into highly decorative and chaotic works of art. Artist finds original portraits and sculptures of Lenin made in the Soviet era on flea markets and on announcements on the Internet. He paints on top of old portraits of Lenin fragments from famous paintings or drip paint on them, cut the canvases into pieces and glue them in a chaotic manner, let them paint them for children, he paints the sculptures in funny colors and glues them with various objects. As a result of this artistic gesture, the artist erases the propaganda and ideological meanings of the image, at the same time endowing it with decorative qualities. However, with all the fun of this manipulation, the artwork acquires new meanings, an antinomical combination of play and seriousness, prompting the viewer to go beyond the accepted paradigm.
Oleksandr Balbyshev was born in 1985 in Ukraine. His paintings are in private collections in the USA, Canada, United Kingdom, , Netherlands, , Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, Croatia, South Africa, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Mexico, and Japan.
- Nationality: UKRAINE
- Date of birth : 1985
- Artistic domains:
- Groups: Ukrainian Contemporary Artists
Oleksandr Balbyshev, bright paintings 
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