Reference of "latter"

Does the highlighted "latter" in the following context imply

1. the fact that some of these paintings seem ambivalent enough to suggest to the viewer that in fact they may celebrate or continue socialist realism

or

2. the fact that Melamid's paintings have such a property

Context:

Socialist realism was furthermore critiqued in the USSR by artists such as Erik Bulatov and the collaborators Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, by means of what this team termed “Socialist Pop Art” or “Sots Art,” also called “Russian post-utopianism” by the critic and art historian Boris Groys. Some of these paintings seem ambivalent enough to suggest to the viewer that in fact they may celebrate or continue socialist realism—Komar and Melamid are said to have declared the latter.