Irony is considered as a way of indirect assessment or one of the forms of emotional criticism, where mockery is hidden behind positive perception. The ironic genre praises what, in fact, denies.

The origin began in literature and is associated with the spread of postmodernism. The features of postmodern irony are associated with the relativity of attitudes and rules, as well as creative freedom, blurring the boundaries between high and low forms of art.

In the visual arts, the object of irony is considered not only specific phenomena, but also any system or order. Ironic content does not have to be inherent in the plot of a work of art itself, it can be made so by the space or context in which it appears. Irony creates symbols, deep meanings, methods for a new vision of familiar things, but does not ridicule them.

What can not be said about the appearance of the genre in the art of socialist realism. Here, with the help of an ironic comedy approach, a confrontation is created against the required artistic depiction of reality, which corresponds to the tasks of ideological alteration and education in the spirit of socialism.

Irony in art creates semantic diversity, causes uncertainty about what emotion can or cannot be expressed: laughter, surprise, a sense of inconsistency, dissonance. The comic twists evoke a sense of doubt.

An exemplary representative of Belarusian contemporary art, Mikhail Gulin, uses the approach of irony, creating the possibility of a detached assessment of the situation. Combining the real and the fictional and creating multi-dimensional characters, the artist reflects on what is happening in contemporary art, social and socio-political issues, using cultural signs and symbols understandable to the mass public.

In the work “Lobster” from the “Recent History” series, there is a reference to the kitsch lobster by Jeff Koons and to the canvases of the artist Philip Colbert (often referring to the genre of irony). Mikhail Gulin owns the words: "One of the important qualities of modern art is its ability to self-irony."

On his canvases, Valentin Gubarev ironically depicts everyday life as a small man and the aesthetics of “undeveloped socialism”. In Belarus, his paintings are called "inappropriate irony", but they found their recognition in France.