Estonian Sots Art! Appropriation of Soviet Visual Culture in the Early Work of Raul Rajangu
Estonian Sots Art! Appropriation of Soviet Visual Culture in the Early Work of Raul Rajangu

Summary/Abstract: This paper will look at the Estonian artist Raul Rajangu’s early series Soviet Midnight (Nõukogude öö, 1981–1982) as an Estonian version of Eastern European sots art. It will argue that Rajangu in the early 1980s, just like Russian sots art artists in the 1970s and 1980s, developed a keen interest in one of the highly ideological domains of the Soviet Union: the visual sphere. This interest was manifested in his playful appropriation of the iconic images of Soviet visual culture, such as reproductions of Lenin, party members reviewing a parade, the Soviet governmental car Chaika and the vacuum cleaner Raketa. Together with certain early works of the group SOUP 69 artists Andres Tolts and Leonhard Lapin, these images allow us to talk about Estonian sots art. However, some differences between political art practices in the centre and on the periphery of the Soviet Union will also be outlined under late socialism.

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