The Beast of Joy: Women Artists from Soviet Republics highlights artists from Ukraine, the Baltic states, the Caucasus, and Central Asia working in the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s. Long underrecognized, these women forged distinctive practices shaped by local traditions, modernist legacies, and relentless experimentation. Presented in dialogue with poetry from the same regions and period, the presentation emphasizes art’s multivocal nature.