Russian-born artists Rimma Gerlovina and Valeriy Gerlovin were leading proponents of the samizdat art movement which was formed to circumvent official censorship in the former Soviet Union. The "underground" Samizdat artists frequently used text in their works to illustrate the primacy of language in the construction of social reality. This interest in the capricious nature of language has been carried on in the Gerlovins' art since their arrival in New-York City in 1980.
The works of Rimma and Valeriy Gerlovin may be traced to the conseptual experiments of the Moscow School in the former Soviet Union, and rooted in their activities with artistic samizdat. What distinguished the Gerlovins' work during this period was their development of samizdat into a cultural and aesthetic strategy extending well beyond the book form. Originating in the artists' recognition that the meaning of any text is completed only through the participation of a reader, this strategy was effectively carried through to the Gerlovins' work in all other media and remains central to their work today.
The mythico-spiritual essence of the Gerlovins' work is further exemplified by their transition from the use of perfomance, or physical drama, to simbol, or intellectual drama. Central to this transition is the use of linguistic and numerologacal systems. These systems are at once scientific and mystical, serious and playful, prividing the viewer with a key to Gerlovins' "matamorphic games". The viewer is engaged in this metamorphic games through visual and verbal play with archetypal symbols taken from their studies of esoteric philosophy. In the Gerlovins' work the power of these symbol systems is re-actualized.
