Periscope

You Call That Art?
Adoring press coverage and a soaring economy have propelled Russian President Vladimir Putin to something close to a political god. Russian artists are now turning him into a pop-art icon. The Blue Noses, a group of Moscow artists, have created a series of works satirizing the president that includes a triptych of Putin with Jesus and Alexander Pushkin. Moscow painter Sofia Azarkhi's "Inauguration of the Kingdom," portrays a naked Zeus-like Putin riding a green snake into the heavens as angels proffer a crown. "We're seeing a new niche," says Marat Gelman, one of the few Moscow gallery owners to show work critical of Putin. "Russian artists are rediscovering the art of irony."

Not everyone appreciates it. Works by the Blue Noses were detained by Russian Customs agents last month while en route to a Paris exhibition. Russian Culture Minister Alexander Sokolov called it "a shame for Russia." Meantime, Oscar-winning director Nikita Mikhalkov—producer of a biopic of Putin that featured lingering shots of his blue eyes—and sculptor Zurab Tsereteli recently sent Putin a letter, in the name of 65,000 Russian artists, begging him to remain president for a third term. And they did so without a trace of irony.

—Owen Matthews and Anna Nemtsova

Stock Answers
Will a new Clinton presidency be bad for stocks? A study of the Dow Jones Industrial Average index shows that it generally jumps in election years, particularly when Republicans win, but underperforms when Democrats take the White House. But that doesn't mean a Hillary Clinton victory will depress stocks, says study author Paul Ashworth. Futures indicators and current stock-market gains now show no strong link between a Democratic president and a bear market.

Weapons Of Indigestion
No matter how nasty you are, you've still got to eat. That's the premise of the new British book "The Axis of Evil Cookbook" by Gill Partington. Focusing on recipes from America's favorite baddies—Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya, Syria and Cuba—each chapter gives an overview of the country's history and a few intriguing (if sometimes well-documented) tidbits about its dictator: Saddam Hussein, hiding in his spider hole, could apparently throw down a family-size bag of Doritos in 10 minutes. North Korea's Kim Jong Il supposedly demands that olives on his pizza be uniformly distributed. Fidel Castro makes his own foie gras p?t?. Some of the recipes are standard in ethnic restaurants worldwide. But Iranian tongue with mushroom (peel off the skin after stewing; slice thinly), Iraqi Tongue of Judges (just lamb or beef sausages with eggplant) and Syrian sheep-kidney toast are all off the beaten menu. Could whirled peas really be the answer to international peace?

—Ginanne Brownell

Changing the Face of Modern War
A London exhibition shows how far reconstructive surgery has come—and what that means for soldiers.

They are gruesome images: black-and-white photographs of men missing jaws, noses, cheekbones and eyes. The photos in "Faces of Battle," a new exhibition at London's National Army Museum, show the disfigured men on the front lines not just of World War I's greatest battles but also of the brand-new field called reconstructive surgery— without whose developments many soldiers injured in Afghanistan and Iraq could not return to daily life.