Soviet posters at Arthur Ross Gallery

What I love about graphic art is its immediacy. A poster must make its point immediately, with none of the equivocations that attach themselves to "serious art." Whether you're selling longer-lasting soapsuds or the glories of Comrade Stalin, the principle is the same: hook 'em and move on to the next pair of eyeballs.

The posters on display in "Laughing Matters" confess straight out that they're propaganda. A few of the pieces might pass muster as pure examples of graphic art, but most are selling soapsuds. Certainly N. Baranova's evocation of the joys of a successful harvest would be understood by Thomas Hardy— and by the rustics he wrote about— but it's fairly unique in its soft-peddling of Message.

The earliest piece in the show— "Long Live Stalin, Voroshilov and the Red Army," by N. Dolgorukov (1934)— is a screaming example of message, but it's also an exciting example of photographic montage and an image of Soviet might designed to give pause to any would-be Napoleon. It's a fairly austere work in black, white and red— a serious work with a serious message to sell.

As artistically successful as this work is, "Under the Leadership of the Great Stalin— Forward to Communism!" fails dismally. Although the artist, M. Soloviev, had the advantages of color and a "widescreen" format to work with, he produces a fairly dull image of a cross-section of the various ethnic groups comprising the state— do I spy a smiling Chechen anywhere?— all presided over by The Great Stalin, looking every inch the successful impresario.

Gullible public

After these warm-up works, we move on the meat of the show: posters actually created during the Khrushchev regime to sell its various policies to the Soviet public. Instead of photographic realism, we now see brightly colored artwork, most with satirical verses attached to them. All of these posters show signs of wear-and-tear. They were actually used, never languishing in galleries.

Interestingly for the nation that shocked the world with Sputnik, many of the posters mock science, scientists and a gullible public that expects to chow down on endless supplies of cheap, chemically-produced sausages (one portrays a loyal Socialist cow weeping, rather than rejoicing in the prospect of a long life on the land).

One poster frames a long satire on plastic footwear and white blouses made out of coal. Another contrasts the serious state-employed chemist creating useful industrial goods with the private "chemist" who operates an unlicensed still.

Good girls and bad

The exhibit also includes the requisite dash of nationalist chauvinism. V. Fomichev's "When Two Girls Met..." contrasts the good Russian girl in her pigtails and traditional garb with her not-so-good Westernized girl friend sporting a boyish bob, tight slacks and a sweater with a row of hearts running across her chest. No doubt fraternization with foreign diplomats and journalists won't be far behind.

Of course, an ad man is expected to pay at least lip service to the product he sells. So in many of these works we see a touching faith in the ability of The Party to root out waste, corruption and criminality— as if those Zivs and dachas rained down on the apparatchiks from Heaven as a reward for jobs well done. Formichev assures us that "The Komsomol Projector" will spy out waste, and the accompanying verses by the poet A. Stavraskii declare, "The ray of incriminating light lays everything bare."

Such faith in one's fellow man almost assumes a religious cast. The Great Stalin no doubt died laughing.