LEONID SOKOV (RUSSIAN 1941-2018)
Andropov's Acronyms,2005
oil on canvas
126 x 96 cm (49 5/8 x 37 3/4 in.
framed dimensions: 130 x 99 cm (51 1/8 x 39 in.)

PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

LOT NOTESThe present work belongs to a series begun by Leonid Sokov in the mid-2000s dedicated to Soviet and ex-Soviet bloc leaders — among them Brezhnev, Andropov's predecessor (pictured in lot 347), Sergei Kirov, Edouard Shevarnadze, Grigory Romanov, Konstantin Chernenko, and more. Based in formal photographic portraits of the kinds paraded in ceremonies and hung in offices and schools, these paintings subvert representational conventions of an "official" image, frequently by means of an obscene or sarcastic inscription, as here.
Fitted along the bottom register without any spacing is a near-incoherent string of acronyms for all of the interior Soviet secret police organizations, in chronological order: the Cheka (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission), OGPU (Joint State Political Directorate), NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs), MGB (Ministry of State Security) and KGB (Committee for State Security). The pairing of these agencies — notorious for carrying out brutal policing and repression throughout the existence of the Soviet state — with Yuri Andropov, is, naturally, anything but serendipitous. Though Andropov's post as the leader of the USSR lasted only from November 1982 until his death in February 1984, he had spent fifteen years, from 1967-1982, as Chairman of the KGB, and played an important role in broadening its executive powers. Pairing Andropov's likeness with these ominous acronyms, Sokov wryly points out the changing titles and faces — but not nature — of the Soviet secret police.