Marxizm de Sad 1998

Arsen Savadov made this photograph “Marxizm de Sad,” and wow, what a title! It’s one of those works that really messes with your head in the best way possible. The setting is a forest, and it's filled with these characters that look like they’ve wandered straight out of some twisted fairy tale. There's a guy in a suit, a group of mostly nude figures wearing mushroom caps. I keep coming back to that mirror in the center of the image; it's as if Savadov is holding it up to us, asking us to reflect on what we're seeing. There’s something so playful and irreverent about the way he's put all these elements together. It’s like a dream, absurd and kind of unnerving. It has that strange surrealist quality, like something you might find in the work of Hannah Höch or maybe a modern day Man Ray. "Marxizm de Sad" doesn't offer easy answers, it's more interested in asking questions, and maybe making you laugh a little bit along the way.