Lenin Statue

This eighteen-foot bronze statue of Vladimir Lenin was commissioned by the Soviet government in the early nineteen eighties. It was intended to be a monument celebrating the revolutionary leader, but the statue was never officially unveiled because the Soviet Union collapsed shortly after it was cast. The artwork spent years abandoned in the backyard of a dacha on the outskirts of Moscow until it was discovered by two American property developers. They brought the sculpture to New York City and installed it on the roof of an apartment complex they were building in the East Village. They purposefully positioned the figure to face south toward Wall Street, creating a permanent, silent gesture of opposition from a radical socialist icon toward the heart of American capitalism.