moscow art critic andrey kovalev
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Andrey Kovalev. Kulik vs. Kurni. Installation “Museum” in Moscow XL gallery

Oleg Kulik is an artist capable of creating an “event” – he slaughtered a pig in Moscow gallery Regina, he bit people while acting a dog in Moscow, New York, Stockholm and Vienna (see short webliography below). However, besides masterful manupulations within the mass media space, Kulik is at the same time no less than a very serious artist, and he elaborates the final product thoroughly. That’s why even on the photo featured at his exhibition titled “Museum” (XL gallery, distributed by Reuter) everyone can easily recognize Anna Kurnikova, the Russian star (the name itself, however, is never mentioned – Russians are shivering with fear before American lawyers).

A sportswoman’s dummy which resembles Kurnikova turned out to be frighteningly lively – beads of sweat on the forehead, a grin revealing wet gums, real snickers covered with real sand, uplifted skirt exposing mighty muscles. Enclosed in a glass box, the wax dummy mystically drifts above the floor despite all physical laws. Those interested not only in the star’s sexy thighs but also in the mysteries of art, will discover after a closer look that it is the beauty’s natural braid attached to the ceiling that keeps the object aloft. The combination of wax’s deathly shine and natural hair creates a shocking effect which is intensified to the highest degree as soon as one notices taxidermic stitches covering the model’s hands, legs, neck and abdomen.

With all the complexity of the performance, Kulik’s message is rather primitive – if stuffed animals are exhibited in museums, why not exhibit a stuffed human? And more – it is difficult to be a star under the constant flashing of paparazzis’ cameras. Another commonplace statement says that every media-based personage has a special media body. In Madame Tussaud’s museum there are exhibited wax copies of numerous society, criminal and political chronicles’ heroes. (Kulik’s activities with wax figures began after his series of large photographic images displaying his cynical sexual assault against Rasputin, Nicholas the Second and the whole Russian history, exibited at St.Perersburg’s affiliate of Mme Tussaud’s).

But there’s yet another statement, which is exceptionally banal this time, saying that such thing as arousing Reuter’s interest requires bringing banality to its highest degree. I can note that Kulik switched to more legal forms of accomplishing art, altough never gave up his old tactics of epatage and scandal. Wild 90s in Russia, when Kulik acted a mad dog, are now over. Now he is becoming more and more alarmed by the fact that within the international scene his somewhat exceedingly aggressive actions are only associated with a notion of “wild money in Russia being made basically by those who embrace violence as a lifestyle”. The quotation belongs to Victor Tupitsyn, American criticist and very sophisticated philosopher of Russian origin, who supports Moscow conceptualists with Ilya Kabakov as their head and bitterly attacks those of the neo-NEP movement.

The truth is that Kulik actually was the mirror of Russian Capitalist revolution and reflected step by step the intensive transformations of the new class’s collective body. But the power’s exalted gesticulation of tongues already passed away, along with Boris Eltsin’s drunken buffoonery in Berlin which camouflaged the collapse of the Evil Empire and the birth of a new one. Now that the old clown removed his cap, and from under it appeared a tragic actor. Oleg Kulik, the bad dog of young Russian capitalism, now concerns himself with legal decoration of offices and informational flows. There are also rumours saying that this very Oleg Kulik’s project, after completing it with several figures resembling Madonna, Bjork and cosmonaut Gagarin, might somehow appear in the Russian pavillion at Biennale di Venezia.

I can also add that Anna Kurnikova, a simple Russian girl embodying the American dream, is not so large a top model. After all, Kurnie has not yet won a single championship and her worldwide fame basically survives owing to cheap tabloids. But Kulik, despite his naпve belief in omnipotent mass media, hasn’t yet succeeded in becoming a Damian Hirst-like superstar either.

Andey Kovalev - [email protected], [email protected]