The pop/off/art Gallery presents to the viewer the, first for several years, solo exhibition of Rostislav Lebedev – a classic of contemporary art, who acquired fame as one of the leaders of Sots-Art.

Lebedev is an author whose works have become epoch-making, such as “Made in the USSR” and “Tarot Cards”. The majority of his works, created in the XXth century, are in the collections of the largest museums – from the State Tretyakov Gallery to the Zimmerli Museun in the USA. Rostislav Lebedev’s new project “Russian Pantheon” consists of a dozen pictures, dedicated to symbolic figures of Russian culture – from Pushkin and Tolstoy to Kabakov and Komar with Melamid. As is known, “pantheon” in translation from the Greek means “an assemblage of all the gods”, but at first sight it is clear that the aim of the project is by no means the glorification of already renowned people, but a slight ironical smile at the nature of fame.

The kind and wise irony in relation to historical figures-brands is in general one of the key themes of Sots-art, running, for example, through Lebedev’s art for more than three decades, but in today’s context with over the top television ratings of the project “The Name Russia” and Internet-voting to ascertain the historical significance of individuals and events, this project acquires particular poignancy. Lebedev’s pictures win over with their simplicity and expressiveness; the deliberately Soviet background with stars and stylised suns is perceived both as a motif from the past, common for all Russians of today, and as a sign of reference to the great epoch, which interweaves into a tight knot culture and propaganda, heroes and tyrants, the past and the future.