19
The painting shows a cartoon accordion made up of two halves of a black-and-white photograph of Gorbachev, while on the bellows are four dancing characters: three women in low-cut tops with their skirts blown up, and one man made of red with yellow stars, a reference to the Communist Party. Gorbachev’s introduction of glasnost and perestroika led to a loosening of restrictions on censorship and ideas that went far beyond what Gorbachev had originally intended; thus, this image of him being played like an accordion, with loose women dancing in between, refers to the Soviet population taking their freedoms to unprecedented levels. M. Parshikov, Let’s Dance?, 1990
20
The Account of the Gorbachev Foundation depicts Gorbachev in tropical swim trunks, ankle-deep in the ocean, holding a pair of sunglasses and a red telephone with a frayed cord. There are two ships in the background bearing down on him from either side. This portrayal of the vacationing Gorbachev references Gorbachev’s trip to his vacation home in Foros in the Crimea on the eve of the August coup of 1991. The red phone line, now severed, is his connection to the Kremlin. The title references the Gorbachev Foundation, an organization founded by Gorbachev in December of 1991 to promote international research into social, political, and economic issues.
Mikhail Rozhdestvin, The Account of the Gorbachev Foundation, 1991
21
Boris Yeltsin raises his fist in victory, his profile superimposed over a painted background of red, white, and blue, the colors of the flag of the Russian Federation.Yeltsin’s face is obscured by multicolored scratches, a defacement of his image that is further emphasized by the splattered, bloody nature of the red paint of the flag. In 1991,Yeltsin was popularly elected to the office of President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.Yeltsin gained further popularity during the failed coup against Gorbachev in August 1991, when he famously stood atop a tank outside the Russian parliament building and gave a speech defending the Russian White House against the hard-line Communists attempting to grab power. The defacement of this work might be a critical reference to Yeltsin’s opportunistic speech during the coup attempt and subsequent power grab after Gorbachev eventually stepped down in December 1991. Sergei Sukharev, Viva Russia!, 1991
8