Russia 2018's Official Poster Harks Back to the Future
Sean O'Conor
The Official Poster for the 2018 World Cup in Russia by Igor Gurovich ticks all the right boxes - it is striking, good-looking and captures the flavour of the age or the host nation.
Commemorative graphic designs for FIFA's big show should encapsulate all three qualities, with the aim of garnishing for posterity the globe's most exciting and passionate cultural gathering every four years.
But it is not easy. Of the fifteen World Cups since 1930, only around half have truly memorable posters.
The Art Deco classic from France 1938 is one of the better ones, where the triumphant bronze boot upon the ball astride the globe is instantly iconic.
The Mexico 70 poster, a simple graphic which heralds the coming computer age, is equally stunning and emblematic of its time.
Joan Miro's Picasso-esque whirl of paint for España 82 is wonderfully Spanish while the splash of poster paint for USA '94 was in perfect tune with the summery novelty that big soccer show was for most Americans.
Switzerland 1954 is perhaps the most enigmatic and eye-catching of them all, a metaphorical rendering of a goalkeeper's despairing dive with echoes of central European folk art and carrying uncanny echoes of Germany's winning goal against the Mighty Magyars in the final.
Others seem mundane and ephemeral - Brazil's wispy effort from 2014 for instance.
In fact until Russia 2018, there had been a string of lukewarm official posters which failed to hit the bullseye of Italia '90's magnificent marriage of modern faith (football) and cultural patrimony - a colour pitch superimposed upon a black and white Colosseum.
The 2018 poster is at once visually attractive. The stamp of an artist who understands the spectrum is evident: Contrasting shades of green and orange hand it a pleasing harmony while the dirty yellow background echoes the urban smog of modern industrialised Russia.
The large green disc evokes the centre circle of the football pitch and along with the other circle - the oversized globe metamorphosing into a football, or vice-versa, it echoes the double sphere design of the Chile 1962 poster, but pulls it off much more successfully.
In that one a football had transformed into the moon and was almost crashing into the Earth, God cataclysmically granting life to Adam. In this one Mother Russia is the moon soaring beyond Earth, pulling humanity along with it towards the stars beyond.
The galactically grandiose sentiment of the 2018 poster is quite an acceleration from the harmonious constellation in the shape of a football which adorned Germany's 2006 one.
The Earth/moon/football/Russia sphere in the postage stamp of the frame has sunbeams shooting out from it in the form of a transfiguration shining wisdom upon the world below and is also reminiscent of the Soviet Soyuz space probes, which literally took humanity into the heavens.
FIFA's official launch video confirms this initial impression, with the ball transforming into a Cosmonaut module en route for the stars.
The triangular dagger of rays piercing the green sphere echoes the best-known work of Constructivism - the triumphalist Russian art movement which followed the 1918 revolution.
This is El Lissitzky's 1919 painting 'Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge', a symbolic celebration of the Bolsheviks in the Civil War, although what exactly needs defeating in 2018 is unspecified.
According to FIFA, the use of sunbeams "symbolises the tournament's energy", and confirms the unashamed borrowing of Constructivist motifs.
"This language is unquestionably thought of as Russian throughout the world," said Gurovich explaining his use of a century-old style of graphic design. Quite so, but why patriotism instead of internationalism in 2018 one wonders....
The Russian bear is roaring again on the world stage under Vladimir Putin of course, defying the European Union in Ukraine, irritating the USA in Syria and confounding the UN with its cyber-led foreign policy.
Against this backdrop, there was no prospect of an internationalist World Cup poster, as Brazil did in 1950 where all the flags of the competing nations emblazon the player's sock, or Switzerland's 1958 version, where they are are joined together in a scarf.
For those and many other official posters, the host nation is only referenced in words.
Offended Russians might counter that England got the patriotic ball rolling with their 1966 poster, but the small Union Jack is on a clearly playful little lion - World Cup Willie, the first mascot for the tournament, while the frame is dominated by white space, a football and the block capitals "WORLD CUP."
So this is the most overly patriotic poster since Argentina '78, a tournament which took place under a brutal dictatorship, and some might say the Kremlin in 2018 is little better than La Junta was 40 years ago.
Constructivist art was triumphalist in the first flush of the revolution but the hindsight of history has left its faith in the future ring hollow and that is the problem with reviving what can be seen as the propaganda of the past.
"It was very important for us to portray Russia as the Host Country in the Official Poster," said the chairman of the organising committee Vitaly Mutko at the launch, without elaborating.
FIFA Secretary General Fatma Samoura called it,
"A true reflection of Russia's artistic and football heritage...which celebrates the coming tournament on Russian soil."
Indeed it is, but this is still the WORLD Cup and not the Kremlin Cup, a tennis tournament for which Gurovich has also designed.
In fact the official poster would not look out of place among the dictator art of the Thirties.
The Russian Superman soars between planets clasping the globe in one hand. Planet Earth is metamorphosing into a football or vice versa as the work of God and Adam clash, yet only one nation remains unconquered on its surface: Yep, a map of Russia bursts out of the chaotic firmament to absorb and reflect the light of heaven.
The only counterargument to this narrative is to be found in the face of Lev Yashin, a snapshot of a human like us exerting himself to achieve but suffering the concomitant pain and pangs of doubt as he reaches for glory.
This little corner of humility is a welcome antidote to the propagandist tone of the ensemble, a soothing reminder to us in the West, as Sting sang, that "Russians love their children too."
Overall though, Yashin's body is rampant and exudes demi-godlike powers.
His famous quote could well have accompanied the canvas' celebration of Russian soccer and spaceflight:
"The joy of seeing Yuri Gagarin flying in space is only superseded by the joy of a good penalty save."
Yashin, the 'Black Spider' who was probably the greatest goalkeeper of the 20th century and certainly the only one to have won the Ballon d'Or, is also now the only real person to be featured on a World Cup poster.
Outstretched, with one glove welded to an oversized football/globe, he glides through another dimension and the analogies to Sputnik and the Russians' role in pioneering space exploration are clear.
The overwhelming physique of Yashin in the frame also reminds those who doubted Russia's suitability for being World Cup hosts that this nation, unlike Qatar or the USA, has a long soccer heritage and gave the game one of its all-time greats.
For all the appearance of Russian triumphalism in the image as a whole, planting a globally popular player at its heart strikes a harmonious chord with true football fans everywhere.
And yet the overriding aftertaste is a retro one, harking back to an era where the Soviet Union outgunned the world in industry, military might and scientific endeavour.
Take a look at the inaugural World Cup poster from 1930 for comparison and the principal form is the same - a goalkeeper leaping high to his left to keep out an impending goal.
Yet Guillermo Laborde's canvas employs more colours and a more stylised Art Deco symbolism in its figure and typeface, which keeps the large word 'URUGUAY' below almost invisible - it was intentionally about the tournament and not the host nation.
Doubtless Vladimir Putin applauded upon seeing a map of his nation in the frame, another first for a World Cup poster. The Sochi Winter Olympics give us a precedent for Russia hosting the world and although they seemed somewhat nativist in tone to visitors, it is important to understand that was merely quotidian to Russians.
If there is one nation whose mentality outsiders notoriously struggle to get to grips with, it is the largest one in the world, the continent-straddling land with eleven time zones.
In attempting to discern why Russia 2018 insisted on an apparently inward-looking design, it pays to revisit Winston Churchill's famous 1939 quote about anticipating which way Russia would turn:
"It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, but perhaps there is a key: That key is Russian national interest."
While using a defunct style of art with nationalist overtones leaves it open to external criticism, this matters little to the locals.
All things considered, Gurovich's poster remains a distinct, well-crafted and attractive offering which rightly earns its place in the FIFA gallery.
The 21st official World Cup poster is sure to go down as one of the most iconic of the bunch and a markedly Russian chapter of football history.
Read about the 2018 FIFA World Cup Emblem and the 2018 Fifa World Cup Mascot.
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