Necrorealism

Necrorealism emerged from the New Artists movement. Although the title was a parody of the term Socialist Realism, the movement did more than just poke fun at the official codes. In the understanding of the group leader Yevgeny Yufit and such associates as Oleg Kotelnikov, Vladimir Kustov and S. Serp, the dialectics of “death” (necro) and “life” (realism) acquired an existentialist character. The group managed to avoid the temptation of following the “path of least resistance”, articulating political allusions which had already lost their poignancy in the second half of the 1980s. Necrorealism was originally a synchretic movement, developing its aesthetics in both painting and, to a lesser extent, photography and cinema (Yevgeny Yufit began his career as a photographer, before winning fame as an alternative film director).