Drawing the Big Picture

A dapper Russian man savoring his meal raises his arm to refuse a shot of vodka offered to him by his companion across the table. There is something unusual about this picture.

That is because the scene is not playing out in a local cafe or a typical household, but rather on a Soviet-era propaganda poster, exhorting citizens to abstain from booze during lunchtime.

Hundreds of such posters, from the early Soviet period through the present, will be on display at the Moscow House of Artists in a memorial exhibition dubbed "Life lines." The show, organized by the Moscow Union of Artists, honors the work of many famous and prolific poster artists who have passed on in recent years.

Material from the Soviet days often extolled the virtues of socialism, depicting Lenin and Stalin as heroic figures and showing dutiful yet cheerful men and women serving their country in factories, on collective farms and on battlefields. Despite the decidedly unpleasant conditions for many people living in the Soviet Union, the posters reflect the notion that economic and social utopia through hard work and cooperation were worthwhile and feasible aspirations.

Soviet industrial and technological achievements before and after the war, in addition to the victory over Nazi Germany, gave many poster artists inspiration for their work, said exhibition collaborator Georgy Kamenskikh. "Many of these artists lived through World War II."

The rapid transition from communism to the chaotic capitalism of the 1990s wrought tremendous changes on Russians' daily lives, how they expressed themselves, and how they envisioned the future. Poster art ceased to be a tool wielded exclusively by the state and became a medium for contemplating the various problems and possibilities of the new era.

On one poster from 1990, a Lenin quote observing that the "Russian example shows all countries the essence of their near and inevitable future," is scrawled under an image of Russia as an apple with several bites taken out of it, evoking the imminent disintegration of the Soviet Union.

"The peak of interest in poster art was in the 1990s," Kamenskikh said. Attention was paid retrospectively to the Soviet pieces, which could be seen in a different light after the opening given by glasnost and perestroika. Poster art made in the 1990s manifested feelings of disorientation and uncertainty in ways that had not been common during the Soviet times, providing an artistic outlet for widespread woes.

Since the end of the 1990s, poster art still dishes out social, economic and political commentary, though the tone tends not to be as grim as during the turbulent times of the past.

"Serial Killer of Your Time" is written in bold letters beneath a black-and-white mug shot of a television set, signaling a shift away from content concerned with war, five year plans, runaway inflation and national identity crisis.

"Today, poster art deals with ecology, terrorism, consumerism; issues that are now more visible in society," exhibition curator Alena Khritoshkina said.

The exhibition organizers expect members of older generations to turn out in greater numbers, since it is a retrospective event focused on the work of recently deceased artists.

"Even though older people have more memories of the different periods represented in the posters, young people might find it interesting to see some things the way their parents and grandparents saw them," Kamenskikh said.

"Life lines" ("Linia Zhiznei") runs to July 26 at the Moscow House of Artists, located at 11 Kuznetsky Most. Metro Kuznetsky Most.