Comics have not been assimilated into Russian art in the same way as they were by Pop artists in the West. In fact, they are still considered somewhat alien and certainly not the medium with which to convey anything serious. Ostretsov has knowingly subverted this received idea by co-opting the resistance to comics and pop culture in works such as Sex in the City, using them as a colourful, mass culture form “[to polemicize] with the profound, rather heavy-handed conceptualist approach”.