| Address: | Moscow, Russia |
| Contact: | http://www.artnet.com/artist/9898/oleg-kulik.html |
| Similar in Moscow: | ArtInfo Website, Alexander Brener Artist, Konstantin Zvezdochetov Artist, Vladimir Dubossarsky Artist, Vladimir Sorokin Writer, Moscow Museum of Modern Art Gallery, Art-group Voina/Арт-группа Война Artist |
| Similar Worldwide: | Avdey Ter-Oganyan Artist (Prague) |
He started his career with "Deep into Russia" series of photographs, where he was mimicking having sex with animals. His later project involved him going in public places in Moscow and acting like a dog. For example he would stand in front of a big shop, naked, and bark so much that it would prevent people from getting in. The performances were filmed, and always ended with the police taking him away. Often the people watching the crazy artist would play his game and treat him like a dog, but he would never let himself be stroked. So it gave a very absurd and violent representation of communication. Once he stayed for some weeks in a wooden box in a gallery, acting like a dog in a cage. A kind of modern response to Joseph Beys, who stayed in a gallery locked in for the time of the exhibition with a coyote.
He wrote : "I am an artist possessing a powerful projectional will. My projects are just as interesting as they are dangerous or repugnant to society. When I am able to materialize the phantoms of my imagination through my knowledge of the mechanisms of reality, I experience supreme bliss which I try to share with my admirers and connoisseurs."
Nowadays Kulik is not as outrageous as he used to be, moving to installation and video art from performance. His most recent work involved him being a disco-ball at a party or creating a life-size replica of a famous Russian tennis player and exhibiting her in a gallery inside a glass box.
