Golden Egg

Technique: Silkscreen.
Size: 70 × 97 cm.

A sheet from the series “Russian,” Oleg Kulik’s address to the imagery of national culture, conceived as a dedication to Leo Tolstoy. The title alludes to the golden egg of the folk tale “Ryaba the Hen”: the artist renders the fairy-tale motif in the language of printmaking, combining a black-and-white photograph with lavish gilding. The series belongs to Kulik’s reflective, photographic period, which followed the radical “Man-Dog” actions that made him one of the central figures of Moscow actionism. Across the cycle, recognizable symbols of Russian culture are joined with irony and dark humor, while red, blue, and white form the colors of the national flag.