КАПІТАЛІСТИЧНЕ ЗА ФОРМОЮ, НАЦІОНАЛЬНЕ ЗА ЗМІСТОМ: ПОП-АРТ В УКРАЇНСЬКОМУ РАДЯНСЬКОМУ ЕСТРАДНОМУ ПЛАКАТІ

“National in form, socialist in content” — this well-known formula of socialist realism was ap­plied in all Soviet arts, including posters. Till the end of the 1980s, the majority of works (not only in Ukraine but also in other Soviet republics) communicated mes­sages, generated by the communist party, using some local “atmosphere ” — national costume, ornament, landscape. In this context, Ukrainian Pop Art posters are the total opposites. First, within the framework of the Soviet state institutions, it was difficult to imagine legal circulation of such anti-Soviet graphics. Second, the names of the ensembles emphasize national ori­gins — “Kobza ”, “Smerichka ”, “Vodohray ”, but, they have no national elements in the poster design. On the contrary, Ukrainian content is illustrated in the spirit of global mass culture, which gives it unexpected con­notations.

Objectives. The objective of the article is to trace the motifs and techniques of Pop Art as well as the combi­nation of the “capitalist” form and national content on the Soviet Ukrainian popular music posters.

Results. Pop Art stylistics of the Ukrainian posters imi­tate well-known American and British artworks. These are collages of various images, text-and-illustration dy­namic juxtapositions, as well as particular motifs such as radial beams, “flashes ” borrowed from comic books, colored halos, radical perspectives, and bulk metallic lo­gos. Pentagram shapes indicate the coincidence of the American and Soviet symbols (which in the Ukrainian case could be justifiedfor censors), but in such stylistics, it looked quite ambiguous. Color vibrations are used along with the popularity of Optical Art. Type design and lettering were important elements of the Pop Art posters. In many cases, music bands or artists names dominate the composition. Often, they appear as three-dimension­al blocks in perspective, mimicking street signs and re­flecting the environment of a modern city. Logotypes for many bands follow the covers of Western music albums, which in turn resemble metallic car logos.

The imitation of pop art by the Ukrainian designers was not limited to a few motifs and images, a particular technique was also important. One of the most popular techniques was a collage. In the traditions of Dada, as well as Neo-Dada, cut out images are combined to cre­ate a unique composition. In order to achieve smooth textures, authors do not use brushes and paints but ap­ply colored paper (often self-made). Photo negatives or solarization were used quite often. A slight shift of

plates in the multi-color print process created color “contours”, “shadows”, and “halos”, while printing from only one or two plates (out of four) resulted in unexpected color combinations. Enlarged and visible print raster imitated the works of Roy Lichtenstein.

A very popular technique of Ukrainian posters of the 1970s was airbrush. It allowed for even color fills and smooth gradients. Airbrush technique gives a feeling of hyperreality, even when abstract forms or unreal ob­jects are painted. Posters in this technique imitate pho­torealism that has developed from Pop Art in the 1970s.

The combination of national content with the stylistic of American origin in Soviet works motivated to look at the graphic design of the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States. After all, Ukrainian-American art­ists and designers were both consumers of American mass culture and visitors of famous Pop Art exhibitions. However, in the Ukrainian Diaspora, Pop Art was not perceived as a visual language that could represent a nation. Ukrainian artists could experiment with Pop Art and exhibit in galleries, but the Ukrainian commu­nity would not allow it in its publications. Quite the op­posite happened in Soviet Ukraine. Despite the Western “bourgeois ” character of Pop Art, this stylistic could “pass” the censorship and was circulated in large-for­mat posters. It is obvious that neither editors of pub­lishing houses nor Soviet audience had contacts with the sources of Ukrainian Pop. Therefore Ukrainian posters, despite their similarity to Western works, are conceptually different and should be considered within modernist following and not the postmodern mimicry. Conclusions. The authors of the Soviet Ukrainian post­ers borrowed the techniques and particular motifs from famous Pop Art artists. Some of these borrowings were based on secondary sources — commercial advertising in periodicals and covers of music albums. Unlike the works of Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Rosenquist, in the posters of Kyiv artists, there was no exaggeration and irony, popular graphic techniques performed advertis­ing function again. In the representation of Ukrainian popular music groups, this western graphic provided unexpected connotations, and, in combination with the verbal part, modified, or even changed its meaning. In Soviet Ukraine, non-Soviet stylistics opposed dominant ideology. It showed that national identity can have a modern visual expression that goes beyond the estab­lished set of symbols.