Artist Oleg Kulik: biography, paintings, interesting facts from life, photos

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In downtown New York, 22 years ago, a naked man on a leash throws himself at passers-by. A few years later, in the 1990s, he also tries to become a deputy of the Government and participate in elections from the Animal Party. True, documents signed with animal paw prints and withered insects are not accepted for some reason. This outstanding person is the artist Oleg Kulik, who receives invitations to exhibitions in Europe and America because of his extremely original performances.

Childhood

Kyiv. 1961 April 15 at three o'clock in the morning, as Leonardo da Vinci, Oleg Kulik was born.

His parents were strict, the boy attended educational sections, circles. Contacts with peers outside of school were minimized, walks were almost excluded. Until now, Oleg recalls English lessons as the worst thing in life, despite the fact that his mother was a teacher of this discipline and French. Even then, a rebellious spirit was born in Oleg, and he longed to leave his parental home as soon as possible.

Youth

Oleg Kulik received his secondary specialized education at the Geological Exploration College, which he graduated with honors. After completing his studies, he went to Kamchatka, then to Siberia. Further, on the advice of Comrade Mikhail Shtikhman, he went to Torzhok. In a creative sense, Oleg at that time saw himself as a literary figure. Tormented by the dream of writing a story about life in a remote village, he settles in a village called Konopad. Oleg lived in this place for two years. During this time, he wrote one, in his opinion, a good story about his father, he burned the rest. There he became interested in modeling, chose the direction of cubism and developed in it.

Teacher

On the advice of a loved one, Oleg brought eminent sculptors to Moscow for trial. It was 1981, in the village where Kulik lived, the poet Strakhov and his wife settled. She worked as a fashion model and had contacts in the art world. On her recommendation, armed with a bag of sculptures, Oleg Borisovich appeared before the head of the House of Folk Art. Then Vasily Patsyukov was in charge of it. It was he who introduced him to Boris Orlov. According to Patsyukov, he was the best sculptor in Moscow at that time. Oleg, when he first visited the sculptor's workshop, was amazed by his talent, the workshop is filled with incomprehensible works in the form of cans, pieces, fragments and stumps. This is how they met. Kulik and Borisov often talked. During this period, Oleg revised his view of creativity in general. And the formation as a figure of contemporary art began. The main thing, in his opinion, in any work is the state of the artist during the process.creating a work of art. Copying the classics is nonsense. The future of creativity is in creating something new, through individual self-expression. This period was a turning point in the biography of Oleg Kulik.

Transparency

In the 1980s, Oleg Borisovich goes to repay his debt to his homeland. He himself calls this period of life isolation. In the head of the creator appears a formalized idea of the transience of time. The army, with its tough morals and internal dirt, left an imprint on Kulik's work. In 1989, he initiated a new round of his activities. Perspex accidentally fell into the hands of the artist. For ten years after, he created transparent figures. Carved figures were born, the refraction of light was studied. Thanks to his work with glass, Oleg Borisovich realized that even a transparent, as if invisible material changes the space around, but does not change the vision of the world. This idea dominated his work for a long time. For ten years, the artist Kulik has been looking for perfect glass forms, creating figures and compositions.

One of the famous works of that period is “Life Death, or the Lush Funeral of the Avant-Garde”. This work was a glass coffin. Inside it lay a wooden coffin, smaller. It, in turn, is filled with sheets of biblical commandments. The artist sprinkled the composition with dead cockroaches.

After a while, Kulik returns to reality with the thought that he has not found the right form of self-expression. The country was in the maelstrom of Perestroika, the artist was already thirty years old.

First performance

Glory came toOleg Borisovich Kulik after the first "dog" performance. Moscow, 1994. In the creative studio of Marat Gelman, the front door swings open, and a naked man on a leash flies out to the surprised passers-by, the other end of the leash is held by colleague Alexander Brener. The performance was aimed at the common man as a reminder of the wild nature hidden within. Oleg jumped on the hood of passing cars, frightened the drivers. “Attacked” a Swedish journalist who published an article about Russia as a “country with wild morals” (Oleg bit her in a creative outburst). Despite the savagery of the situation, the audience's attention is focused on the fact that a naked person (like an animal) is essentially defenseless. Critics were divided. Kulik's supporters noted that he was the first to integrate beast and man in this way. Such actions were not arranged before, Oleg Borisovich was called a fashionable and avant-garde creator. With the "man and dog" artist Kulik traveled all over Europe and America, the theme did not let him go for thirteen years.

Zurich

One day, friends decided to play a joke on the artist. Found somewhere a form from the Kunsthaus in Zurich. They made a copy of the invitation with a request to show the "man-dog" in Switzerland. The signature of Bice Kuriger, who was responsible for the exhibition, was successfully copied and did not cause any doubts in Kulik.

On arrival in Switzerland, having visited the museum, Oleg, of course, guessed that he had been played. They did not hear about him and did not prepare for his arrival. After laughing with his friends at an excellent prank, he nevertheless decided to demonstrate the “man-dog” there as well.

1995, Kunsthaus. On thatAt the same time, the exhibition "Signs and Wonders" was held in the halls of the museum. European experts have arrived. Nude artist Oleg Kulik chained himself at the entrance to the vernissage and did not let people into the exhibition. He again bit the woman (she turned out to be the wife of one of the ambassadors), committed several acts of vandalism, typical of a dog on a walk. Oleg left the museum in a police car.

The European public reacted ambiguously to the performance. He was called the lone Cerberus. A photo of Oleg Borisovich Kulik in the role of a four-legged circulated in the media. In a foreign journalistic get-together, Kulik was nicknamed a mad dog.

Animal Party

Among creative and active people, the Turnkey Party project was launched. Within its framework, the avant-garde artist creates the Animal Party and appoints himself as its representative. The main message of the Animal Party is to stop human atrocities. In the pre-election debate of the parties, the author mumbled instead of human speech. Proclaimed beasts equal to man.

Interpol

1996, Stockholm. The program "Dog House" was created. The author of the performances, the artist Kulik, was invited to all European countries with his works. Sweden, as a country without violence, was shocked by Kulik's behavior at the exhibition. The police took him away, the artist again bit someone. They forced me to write an explanation about the violence against visitors to the exhibition. He also damaged part of the museum's exposition.

Not with a word, but with a body

1996, Moscow. The new work of Oleg Kulik has become part of the election campaign. Collected signatures of the electorate in support of the candidate for deputies andbreastfeeding at the same time. A corset with six imitations of a sow's breasts was fixed on the artist's body, and people were given vodka through them.

During this period, the creative intelligentsia of Russia aspired to the West, they tried to work based on the requests of foreign specialists. The work was valued universal, not having a national background. The artist Kulik, thanks to his performances, has become one of the most famous artists in Russia. Although initially Oleg planned to end his career with a performance. The artist's work is original and original, the demonstration of the equality of man and animal has brought success. The end of the “epoch of zoophrenia” in Kulik’s work came when he came up with the idea of taking his finger away and feeding it to a dog in public. He never got the courage to do this, so it was decided to end the dog-man.

Zoological Museum

2002, Moscow. Kulik's exhibition inside the Museum project again impressed the crowd with its originality. The artist created stuffed people. The glass cubes housed a tennis player, an artist and an astronaut.

The stuffed tennis player was created to remind the viewer of eternal femininity. Many note a clear resemblance to Anna Kournikova. The figure is made in motion, surprisingly clear and believable. The hair and teeth of the stuffed animal are real, the skin is made of wax, so it has a slightly transparent, airy look. The work embodies fragility and at the same time rigidity, an anguish of an athlete. The dual nature of a woman is demonstrated: beauty and aggression (scars on the body).

The astronaut looked like a baby withumbilical cord. His gaze is open and naive, like that of a child.

Regina

Much later, after a long break, the artist Oleg Kulik opens the exhibition "Frames". This project involved five works of the artist. The first exposition is two wooden frames at the entrance to the exhibition. They have mirrors built into them. The person who gets inside becomes like a corridor, which observes from the inside. The sacred meaning of this work is to clear the space inside oneself. Reflections in the mirror are repeated endlessly. A person sees only himself inside the mirrors and no one else.

The next exhibit is a depicted man surrounded by glass lamps with candles with live fire. There is a shadow inside the fiery background, the hand is raised, as if making a throw. The meaning of the work is that a person is smeared with his passions. Inside it is blackness, although everything around is bright, beautiful and smacks of religion.

The central exposition of the exhibition is "Black Square". This work repeats Malevich's Square, but it is framed in a white frame. The main thing, according to Oleg Kulik, is the frame in the picture. Inside is emptiness and blackness, but around is pure and white. The frame symbolizes hope, the salvation of people inside the square. The entire exhibition was created to reveal the meaning of this frame.

Madonna

The artist worked on this piece for a long time. More than six hundred small dolls were molded, with different heads and dresses, masks and skirts. Oleg Borisovich stopped in the end on a simpletriangle and ball. Small puppet figures frame the outline of the Madonna and Child. Kulik's art is to convey to the audience the message of lightness and childhood. The artist speaks here of youth, which will come to the black abyss to reflect on the structure of the world.

The small figurines around Madonna are clearly sending a message to Pussy Riot. According to the artist, he did not try to provoke a scandal, this is a tool, an image, and not the essence.

Dome

The geometry of the dome repeats the temple of the II century in Cappadocia. The artist accurately repeated the location of the figures inside the dome. Kulik took a photo of the dome inside the temple with a flash and received an image without the faces of the saints. Thus, torment and suffering in the name of faith were erased, only pure geometry remained.

The main idea of the work is religion in the modern world. No blood, watery eyes. In the center of the exposition is a black void. The square around symbolizes the earth. The circle is the symbol of the sky. According to the author, only one shell remained from the former spiritual Christianity. The chandelier pulls up behind it, it seems that it has always been in the center of the hall.

Followers

In 2007, the art group "War" appeared. Together with another Bombila team, they held a lot of actions. The main theme of which, unlike Oleg Kulik, is politics. Some of the performances of these teams are frankly shocking and reminiscent of scenes from adult films. Most of the actions were held in the basement studio in Podmoskovny Lane. Kulik counts themextraordinarily talented and proud to have bands following him.

The story of a man who nailed himself by the genitals to Red Square also does not subside. His name is Peter Pavlensky, an artist also from Kyiv. The first action was called "Shov". Pavlensky sewed his mouth shut with harsh threads. The action took place against the backdrop of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg. By his actions, Peter protested against the arrest of Pussy Riot. He showed the intimidation of society and a demonstration of the position of the artist in modern Russia. After the action, Pavlensky was taken to an appointment with a psychiatrist, who let him go after making sure that the patient was sane.

Family

Oleg Borisovich Kulik's childhood was prosperous, the family was not poor. Parents occupied good posts in Soviet times. The craving for art was inherent in him from childhood. The installations used new furniture bought by parents and mother's foreign magazines.

Kulik's first wife was Lyudmila Bredikhina. They met when Oleg lived in the village. Lyudmila traveled through the wilderness with her first husband, they already had a four-year-old son. When Oleg took her away, he was 20 years old. Mila shared the interests of the artist in the field of contemporary art, helped to join the crowd of the Moscow underground. It was she who convinced me to change literature to sculpture at the beginning of my career. The wife took part in all the performances of the artist.

In recent years, the brawler artist has become calmer. Oleg Kulik's paintings have become deeper in meaning. In recent years, he traveled a lot, visited Tibet, was inspiredEastern culture and meditation. Today, this artist spends a lot of time at home with a family whose composition has changed. It consists of his wife Anastasia and daughter Frosya, who will turn seven this year.

In conclusion

Modern art has always caused a lot of controversy around itself. Screaming, unexpected, open to everything unusual, it shocks people more often than it makes them admire. Nevertheless, people continue to go to Oleg Kulik's exhibitions, critics admire the works or, conversely, they are negative. Kulik's paintings continue to be exhibited around the world.

In the 1990s, when the country was gradually collapsing, Oleg Borisovich managed to make a breakthrough in art and become a world star. During Perestroika and the dashing 1990s, Kulik's ideas were not in great demand, people were busy surviving. But the artist has earned a name for himself and enjoys great success in the modern world of art. The opening of the most popular Winzavod began with his exhibition. Oleg Borisovich is one of the directors of the annual art event "Archstoyanie", is the creator of the campaign poster for Ksenia Sobchak.