Bikini, Moscow c. 1959 - 1989

William Klein shot this photograph in Moscow, though the date is unknown. The image presents a young woman in a bikini, smiling broadly, juxtaposed against a more conservatively dressed older man. The photograph's power comes from the clash of visual codes and cultural references that it contains. Klein was an American working in Europe, and he brought a sensibility shaped by those contexts to the Soviet Union. The bikini itself was a potent symbol of Western consumer culture, while the Soviet Union was known for its more modest cultural norms. The generation gap is palpable: the older man seems to disapprove of or ignore the young woman, and yet she is central. Photographs such as this, and the complex historical context that they emerge from, can be better understood through studies of the economics of fashion, the politics of the Cold War, and the shifting cultural landscape of the 20th century. The meaning of art always depends on its social and institutional context.