Culver City,
California
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Don't Spit...
Date Made: 1990
Country: Soviet Union
Method: Tempera paint on fiberboard
Measurements: 90 cm x 60 cm; 35 7/16 in x 23 5/8 in
Based on a Russian proverb, "Do not spit into a well because you might have to drink from it later." The famous Lake Baikal, in Siberia, is depicted at the bottom of the well. This lake, the purest fresh water reservoir and largest lake on earth, is now endangered by ecological wrongdoing. The movement to protect Lake Baikal from pollution roots back to the late 1950s when Soviet environmental scientists that had been repressed under Stalin were able to galvanize the public against the establishment of an industrial zone around the Siberian lake. This artwork from the 1990s represents a shift from those broad preservationist aims toward a focus on resource conservation--a transformation which would come to define rising global environmental consciousness in the 1970s due to fears over resource availability. In 1990, those fears were aggravated in the USSR under conditions of economic decline and oncoming collapse.
Accession Number: 2009.053.080
Item Name: Painting
Credit Line: The Ferris Russian Collection, Donated by Tom and Jeri Ferris
Collection/Series: The Ferris Russian Collection, Donated by Tom and Jeri Ferris