Komar and melamid gallery furniture

Komar and Melamid is a tandem team of Russian-born American conceptualist artists Vitaly Komar (born 1943) and Alexander Melamid (born 1945). In an artists’ statement they said that “even if only one of us creates some of the projects and works, we usually sign them together.

We are not just an artist, we are a movement.” Both artists were born in Moscow, but emigrated to Israel in 1977 and subsequently to New York in 1978. The pair’s co-authorship of works ceased in 2003–2004.

Komar & Melamid’s first joint exhibition, Retrospectivism, was held at the Blue Bird Cafe in Moscow, 1967.

The following year, they joined the youth section of the Moscow Union of Artists and began teaching art. In 1972, Komar & Melamid founded a movement they called Sots Art, a unique version of Soviet Pop and Conceptual Art that combines the principles of Dadaism and Socialist Realism.” In 1974, they were arrested during a performance (in a Moscow apartment) of Art