A sculpture by Oleg Kulik has reportedly sparked an investigation by Russian authorities that could see the famed artist imprisoned.
An investigation is reportedly underway into whether the sculpture by Oleg Kulik -- pictured below and titled Big Mother -- is in breach of Russia’s newly tightened law on the “rehabilitation of Nazism,” which carries a sentence of up to three years imprisonment.
A sculpture titled Big Mother at an art fair in Moscow’s Gostiny Dvor in mid-April.
The artwork was made in 2018, but put on display as part of an art fair in Moscow that ran from April 13 to April 17.
Pro-Kremlin figures called for state action against Kulik for what they say is a parody of Volgograd’s famous Motherland Calls statue of a towering female figure wielding a sword. The artist reportedly claims the work represents the conflict caused by modern women “not wanting to lead a traditional lifestyle.”
Kulik, who was born in Kyiv in 1961, is one of Russia’s most successful artists, with a long history of needling authorities and pushing boundaries both at home and abroad.
Performing as a dog, Oleg Kulik leaps onto a car in the center of Moscow in 1994.
In November 1994, amid the turmoil that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kulik burst naked out of a Moscow building, barking like a dog and attacking passersby. The famed performance led to Kulik being invited to chaotic recreations of the "dog" action across Europe and the United States. One show in Sweden ended with Kulik being hauled away by police after attacking a man who “let out a terrible inhuman scream” and lay bleeding on the ground after being bitten.
Kulik (left) during a performance called Alter Aegis, which was held in a Moscow courtyard in 1995.
The Alter Aegis performance represented the interaction between the beastly and civilized sides of man and the supremacy of “violence over all biological species,” including humans.
Oleg Kulik (sliding in the foreground) during a performance called Russian Safari in Moscow in 1995.
The 1995 action Russian Safari included cars with plates featuring the numbers assigned to various Russian political parties. The cars hunted for “lonely and confused voters” ahead of elections in Russia.
Oleg Kulik with supporters during his "presidential campaign" in Moscow in 1996.
Kulik turned political in 1996, founding the Party Of Animals and vowing to “moo for five minutes” in his first television address if elected president. The artist told a journalist “I want [mooing like a cow] to become the symbol of my rule -- total mistrust in all human speech. I will be judged by my actions, not by my speeches and promises.”
A silhouette of Kulik (right) during a performance titled Moscow. TSUM in 2009.
Kulik referenced Lenin’s tomb in 2015, predicting darkly to RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service that, if the former Soviet ruler were to be suddenly removed from his mausoleum in Moscow, “the demon will show itself to the fullest… All the bloody riots that we have had will turn out to be only a modest rehearsal for the future of the country.”
Kulik installs a wax figure resembling Russian tennis star Anna Kournikova at an exhibition in Moscow in 2002.
Despite a cultural climate that has become increasingly restrictive after the Russian annexation of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula in 2014, Kulik said he remains firmly attached to Moscow. While artist friends leave for Berlin and other Western cities, he judges the German city as a place where “the cars are really good, but the people are terrible” adding “We have the opposite, the cars are terrible, but the [Russian] people are much better.”
Kulik at the opening of his Irresponsible Painting exhibition in central Moscow in 2019.
Kulik told a Russian interviewer that, despite his success, he lives "how I’ve always lived, I left home at the age of nineteen and have been traveling ever since. I don't have a home. I don't have anything at all" adding, "I only want freedom. Freedom is the most important thing."