Gorky / S.S.S.R.Lab.

Gorky was a public sculpture installed on the former pedestal of a Maxim Gorky monument in a city park. After the collapse of the Soviet system, the park lost its original recreational function and became associated with criminal groups and informal activity. Although the area was later partially renovated and renamed Roses’ Park, many residents continued to call it Gorky Park.

The project replaced the missing monument with a plastic sculpture of a chili pepper. The work uses a play on words: in Russian, "gorky" means “bitter,” while Maxim Gorky’s literary pseudonym also carries associations with bitterness and hardship. The sculpture turns this linguistic ambiguity into a public gesture, connecting local memory, post-Soviet transformation, humor, and the symbolic afterlife of monuments.