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Sibirtseva’s wooden windmill humorously represents the life of a typical Soviet woman. Women’s days in the Soviet Union were full of responsibilities and required multitasking. The many arms of this windmill illustrate the typical duties that a woman completed in the course of a day, and provide a breakdown of these tasks: one and a half hours for shopping, nine hours at work, one hour for laundry, one hour for cleaning, three hours for cooking, and finally seventeen minutes to spend with the children.
Vera Sibirtseva, The Fresh Winds of Change?, 1989
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A nude woman stands facing away from the viewer, wearing a long, black braid tied with a 100 German mark bill. Her image is framed with hearts and semicircles, as well as by the phrase “Barbarian beauty, long braid” and two sets of multicolored hearts. Her body is scrawled upon with handwritten phrases like “I want you” and “My dear baby” in English and French, signed by “Bob” and “Bill,” respectively. The sexual notes on the body of a woman who has turned away from the viewer in discomfort emphasize the objectifying gaze. The use of a German bill in her hair, the descriptor “barbarian,” and the graffitti-like nature of the words on her body reduce this woman to a sexual object.
Alexei Rezaev, Barbarian Beauty, Long Braid, 1990 90
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This painting depicts a traditional Russian matryoshka doll holding a flower, drawn on a pink background with multicolored hearts. However, instead of the inside of the doll being filled with smaller and smaller versions of the girl, the painted wooden upper half of her torso ends to reveal human legs wearing garters, fishnet stockings, and high heels. The sexualized rendition of a traditional Russian children’s doll, with the title We Were Not Born Yesterday, speaks to the turbulent changes occurring in the Soviet Union in 1991. Alexei Rezaev, We Were Not Born Yesterday, 1991
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