Aleksandr Vasil'evich Chantsev 1949.04.21 Torun (PL) - 2002.03.03 Moscow (RU)

1990, A short film about killing, Kieslowski, movie poster

1989, The ship, movie poster

1989, Slava, political poster The rats try to leave the sinking ship in a lifeboat called "Slava" (honour, fame, the parade cheer of the communist party), but the boat is already stuck in the mud.

Iurii Borisovich Bokser 1953.05.31 Tashkent (UZ) - 2002.08.17 Moscow (RU)

1990, Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie, Bunuel, movie poster

1988, East Side Story The poster is a parody on Vera Mukhina's famous 1937 monumental sculpture "Farmer and worker"

1991, Stalin's funeral, movie poster

I met Aleksandr Chantsev, Iurii Bokser and Igor Maistrovskii in a dimly lit appartement in Moscow a few days after the coup of August 21, 1991, that led to the fall of the seventy year old soviet empire. There was no light in the stairway, and the usual garbage, and as we groped our way through the dark, Maistrovskii demonstratively operated the useless light switch and commented dryly "social realism". The three friends were nervous, but also excited. They explained that they had been unsure and afraid of the outcome of the coup, and had destroyed many of their political posters for fear they could fall into the wrong hands and be used against them. Then they told me about the poster festival in Chaumont (FR) to which they had been invited a few months ago to show their movie posters. It was their first trip to the west, the event of a lifetime and they had been very much impressed. They were incredulous when I told them that Chaumont was only a three hour drive from my home, that I needed neither visa nor permissions nor money to go there, but sofar had not bothered to visit the festival. We were worlds apart, in many respects. Bokser then gave me a catalogue of a movie poster exhibition in Rome (IT) where he and Chantsev had shown recent works. Marta Sylvestrova, who, as curator of the Brno Biennale, knew all of them well, told me a few years later that Maistrovskii had left for Israel, I lost sight of Chantsev, and last noticed that Bokser had participated in the famous Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition. She also brought the sad news of the premature death of these two great poster designers, and Serge Serov confirmed the details. Links Iurii Bokser's last exhibition (from KAK magazin, in russian) Iurii Bokser's last catalogue (from KAK magazin, in russian) A note to the search machines: I use the Library of Congress transcription of the cyrillic alphabet. Other transcriptions may write Yuri Boxer or Juri Boxer or Jurij Boxer, and Alexander Chanzev, Czanzev, Czanczew, Tshantsev or Cancev.