Soviet nonconformist art was Soviet art produced in the former Soviet Union outside the control of the Soviet state started in the Stalinist era, in particular, outside of the rubric of Socialist Realism. Other terms used to refer to this phenomenon are Soviet counterculture, "underground art" or "unofficial art".

The Bulldozer Exhibition was an unofficial art exhibition on a vacant lot in the Belyayevo urban forest by Moscow and Leningrad avant-garde artists on 15 September 1974. The exhibition was forcefully broken-up by a large police force that included bulldozers and water cannons, hence the name.