Untitled 1944

This piece by Kukryniksy looks like it was printed, and the colours remind me of political cartoons - bold reds and muted blues over the tan map. It has that immediacy of drawing, but look closer and you will see how carefully worked the details are. I can imagine the artist in their studio, maybe a shared workspace, arguing about the composition – the hand holding the sword is so dominant, but the Nazi soldier’s face has real character. It’s like a theatre of power, right? The soldier's arms are being severed – are they chains they’re holding? It's a scene of total war - and notice the way the sword’s point pierces the map; there's no holding back here. This work seems to me to be part of a longer conversation about the role of political art, asking how images can intervene directly into the real world. The drawing creates a space for thinking about history and its visual representation.