Vagrich Bakhchanyan, one of the wittiest characters within the nonconformist movement, the author of caustic phrases that went down in history and were quoted many times, did not hide his own authorship and was not at all afraid of getting punches from the Soviet government. He is considered one of the forefathers of Russian conceptualism, as well as social art. Bakhchanyan also had a direct connection with the sixteenth page of the Literary Gazette, where he worked from 1967 to 1974. Then, in 1974, he immigrated to New York, explaining in an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta what exactly were the everyday reasons - there was nowhere to live, a tearful story about distant Jewish roots helped him and his wife move first to Israel, then to New York. Having finally settled in America, Bakhchanyan was engaged in, in his own words, “systematic nonsense” - performances and actions of an openly absurdist kind. He tirelessly composed puns and aphorisms that became popular: “We were born to make Kafka come true,” “Be careful - save Russia!” ", "All power to sonnets!" Bakhchanyan's works were exhibited in the USA, Europe, Russia and Ukraine. Several books were published in the USA, two of them were republished in Russia. Bakhchanyan called himself an “artist of words,” and this is perhaps the most succinct definition of his work - playful in form and serious in content. The images and words in his collages formed new meanings - unexpected, funny, forcing you to look at the world in a new way.