Mad Dog

Now recognised as one of the major Russian artists of his generation, Oleg Kulik puts the question of animality at the centre of his work. Considering that Western Europe, which regards itself as progressive and liberal, is opposed to Eastern Europe, seen as bad and repressive, he uses the figure of the dog to incarnate the face of an anti-human type of politics. This metaphor of the difficult situation of the artist shackled within post-Soviet society also echoes the Russian literary tradition which, from Gogol to Boulgakov, uses animals as a means to know man better. This collection of photographs depicts one of his seminal performances. Performed in Moscow in 1994 around the Marat gallery, it puts the artist centre-stage, naked and tethered by a dog’s lead, metamorphosed into an aggressive dog, lashing out at the audience crowding around.