Путин. Сфоткал типа сноубордист
This might be my favorite work so far of the satirical protest series I’m doing, which features President Putin involved in various Olympic sports. If you have no idea what is going on, you might try starting here. I saw all the drama unfold with this meme, but it didn’t hit me until famed reddit artist AWildSketchAppeared, who draws impromptu sketches to humorously depict random scenarios of an otherwise textual reddit thread, dropped this beauty on the art world. Credit where credit is due, but I don’t feel like I have been beaten to the punch. I feel like I am actually part of a wonderful, yet cringeworthy spec of insignificant internet history now.
There wasn’t merely one inspiration though for this work. As a fan of satire, I actually loved the movie Zoolander. It was one of the few Western movies I watched in Russia when it came out. The look Putin is giving, well, I like to call it “The Magnum”. This look is no accident. Putin was destined to be a male model until service to his country, and a receding hairline, got in the way of his modeling aspirations.