Oleg Borisovich Kulik (b. 1961) is an artist and curator, one of the central figures of Moscow Actionism of the 1990s; since the 2000s he has worked with photocollage, editioned silkscreen, sculpture and installation. The Don Auction House collection holds 2 works: silkscreen sheets from his project “Russkoe” (“Russian”). Estimates in this section: from 250 000 to 300 000 ₽. Below: the artist’s biography, what the collection holds and how to take part in the bidding.
Oleg Borisovich Kulik was born on 15 April 1961 in Kyiv; he has lived and worked in Moscow since 1986. He graduated from the Taras Shevchenko State Art School in Kyiv in 1979 and from the Kyiv Geological Prospecting College in 1982. From 1990 to 1993 he was art director and exhibition designer of the Regina Gallery in Moscow, and that job was the beginning of his career in contemporary art. He became one of the central figures of Moscow Actionism: the dog-man image with which his name is associated was first shown on 25 November 1994 at Marat Guelman’s gallery in Moscow, in the action “Mad Dog, or the Last Taboo Guarded by a Lone Cerberus”, made together with Alexander Brener. In 2007 Kulik curated the exhibition “I Believe”, a special project of the 2nd Moscow Biennale that opened the Winzavod contemporary art centre; it brought him the Innovation State Prize in the curatorial category. The same year the Central House of Artists in Moscow held his retrospective “Oleg Kulik. Chronicle 1987–2007”.
The Don Auction House collection holds 2 works by Oleg Kulik: “Golden Egg” and “Big Milk”. They are silkscreens on paper, the sheets measuring 70 × 97 and 70 × 96.5 cm, and in the catalogue they sit in the prints section. The silkscreens of the “Russkoe” project were issued in an edition of 25, each impression signed and numbered by the artist by hand (the edition number in pencil). What is on offer is therefore not the only existing impression but a sheet from an artist’s edition, the standard form in which editioned graphic art exists. Each lot record states the title, year, technique and dimensions; the number of the impression, provenance and expert opinion are given wherever such information exists. These works also appear in the contemporary art selection, which brings together nonconformism and Moscow Actionism in every technique.
“Russkoe” (“Russian”) is a project by Oleg Kulik; the solo exhibition of the same name ran at the Regina Gallery in Moscow from 8 December 1999 to 21 January 2000. The gallery’s own description links the project to Leo Tolstoy, and that reading should be treated as a gallery text rather than as a document. The dates of the sheets do not coincide with the date of the exhibition: the artist’s signature on them carries the date “09”, that is, it was added later than the show, so sheets from “Russkoe” appear under both years – 1999, the year of the project, and 2009. Silkscreen here is an autonomous artistic technique and not a printed reproduction of a painting: the ink is pressed through a mesh screen, a separate screen being prepared for each colour, and the edition is limited and fixed in advance. Editioned silkscreen has remained one of Kulik’s regular techniques alongside photocollage, sculpture and installation.
In 2005 Kulik took part in the main project of the 51st Venice Biennale, the exhibition “Always a Little Further” in the Arsenale curated by Rosa Martinez, and on 27 March 2003 he performed the hour-long “Armadillo for Your Show” in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern in London as part of the Live Culture festival. His work “Mad Dog” (1994), a gelatin silver print, is in the collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and an object from his early project “Transparency” is at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. He held fellowships from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (1990) and the Berlin Senate (1995–1996), and was awarded the Russian Academy of Arts medal “To the Worthy” in 2005 and the title of Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The Don Auction House is based in Rostov-on-Don and holds online sales: the guide range for the works by Kulik in the collection is from 250 000 to 300 000 ₽; the final price is decided at auction. Bids are placed remotely, and registration is explained on the buy a painting page. Before bidding it is worth checking the impression number, the sheet size and the year in the lot record: these are the details that tell one impression of an edition from another. Works are also accepted for sale – a preliminary valuation requires photographs of the sheet together with its size, technique and edition number, and the terms are set out under sell a painting. The lots are in the catalogue, the silkscreens in the prints section and the contemporary art selection, forthcoming sale dates on the auctions page, and the full list of artists under artists.
