Komar & Melamid (American, born 1943 and born 1945) 'Mausoleum' from the project Monumental Propaganda signed in Cyrillic and dated '92' (along the right edge); backing board with attached reproduction and colour photograph inscribed in Cyrillic and bearing an export stamp hand-coloured print 28 x 43.5cm (11 x 17 1/8in). Footnotes: The present lot is offered with catalogue Gallery Marat Guelman, Moscow, 1995. (2) Provenance Acquired by the present owner directly from Vitaly Komar in New York 'Today, any effort to save Russia's Socialist Realist monuments from destruction would surely be seen as an attempt to preserve a totalitarian tradition. We propose neither worship nor annihilation of these monuments, but a creative collaboration with them — to leave them at their sites and transform them, through art, into history lessons, - Komar and Melamid, 'What's To Be Done with Monumental Propaganda?', a project for ArtForum, vol. 30, no. 9, May 1992. The present lot depicting Lenin Mausoleum with a moving line '[Let's] Save History' belongs to one of the most important post-SotsArt projects of Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid known as Monumental Propaganda. The artists' call for a reconceptualization of Soviet monuments in the project for ArtForum, in May 1992, was followed by performance What's To Be Done with Lenin Mausoleum? which the duet held at the Red Square in Moscow on 22 April 1993. During the performance, the artists held a model of an electronic display proposed for installation on the facade of the mausoleum and intended to show any relevant information: from announcements and weather forecasts to daily news and literary excerpts. A variety of hand-painted graphic images of the iconic Soviet building with different slogans on the facade were shown in the exhibition titled A Moving Line Displayed on the Step Pyramid which opened on the day of the Red Square performance at the Marat Guelman Gallery. For other works from the project A Moving Line Displayed on the Step Pyramid, see further Gallery Marat Guelman, Moscow, 1995, pp. 14-15. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com