In Soviet Non-conformist art, Pyotr Belenok was a pioneer of photo-realism. In the 1960s he developed his own variation of this international art trend, calling it panic realism. His collages, executed both on canvas and on paper, reveal an almost cosmic space, invaded by gigantic vortexes, splashes and a small figure of a scared, running man.

Exodus is a series of 150 works on paper created in 1969; the year marking the beginning of the mass emigration of Soviet artists and intellectuals. During the next ten years many distinguished artists, musicians and scholars, including Svayatoslav Rostropovich and Oscar Rabin, were forced to leave the country. The combination of the dramatic rhythm of swirls wit...