Anima Animalis

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Galerie Volker Diehl has repeatedly devoted its exhibition program to the development of contemporary art in Eastern Europe. Significant individual positions of this development have been presented in numerous exhibitions in Berlin. After the recent exhibition of the Ukrainian artist Sergey Bratkov, the gallery will present the work of Oleg Kulik in its upcoming exhibition. Oleg Kulik, born in 1961 in Kyiv, Ukraine, is undoubtedly one of the most radical artists of our time. After graduating from the Kyiv School of Art in 1979 and studying geology in 1982, which took him on numerous expeditions, he began his career in the visual arts as curator of the Regina Gallery, one of the most influential underground galleries in Moscow at the time, where he realized a number of spectacular exhibitions. Kulik began his artistic career as a sculptor with objects made of Plexiglas, which already focused on people's perception of their immediate reality. He first attracted international attention, however, when he made performance the central medium of his art, thus becoming one of the outstanding pioneers of Actionism in post-Soviet Russia, whose works are part of the collections of renowned European museums such as Tate Modern in London and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. In his early performances, Kulik slips into the role of a dog, abandoning the corporeality of humans tamed by reason and becoming entirely an instinct-driven animalistic being. Naked, only wearing a dog collar and sometimes led by an attendant on a leash, Kulik encounters the audience of his actions, defends his territory barking and biting, subverting the conventional conditions of human behavior and breaking through to deeper underlying animal instincts. In numerous series of actions under titles such as The Mad Dog or Last Taboo Guarded by Alone Cerberus, Moscow 1991, or I Bite America and America Bites Me, Deitch Projects, New York 1997, an allusion to Joseph Beuys' famous performance I Like America and America Likes Me with a coyote at the René Block Gallery in New York, Oleg Kulik has provoked and not infrequently shocked art audiences in major art institutions such as the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst in Ghent, the Vienna Secession, and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. In 1996, during the Interpol exhibition in Stockholm, a scandal finally broke out when, during Kulik's performance, an art collector did not heed the warning not to get too close to the artist and was consequently bitten by the dog embodied by Oleg Kulik. Kulik was then taken under arrest by the Swedish police. This incident became the model for the famous final sequence in the Cannes Palme d'Or-winning film The Square by Ruben Östlund, one of the most profound examinations of the decline of values in the tides of the contemporary art system. There, an action artist takes on the role of a monkey that ignores all the aloofness of an artistic performance and, on the occasion of a Friends of the Museum dinner, gives free rein to his aggression towards this audience. In many other actions, such as Deep into Russia, 1993, Kulik Is a Bird in Fact, St. Petersburg 1995, or Horses of Bretagne, 1998, Oleg Kulik has slipped into the roles of other animals or has addressed the coexistence of man with animals in not infrequently scandalous constellations. Loosely based on Francis of Assisi, who said: "All creatures of the earth love, suffer, and die like us, so they are equal works of the almighty Creator - our brothers, Kulik is thus on the trail of an idea that Joseph Beuys first formulated in 1969 with his proclamation of a faction for animals. In addition to his actions, which Kulik definitely also understands as sculptural manifestations, he has also been working in the field of sculpture again for years. The exhibition at Galerie Volker Diehl shows selected actions of the artist with photographic series and excerpts from videos as well as significant examples of his sculptural work. —Carsten Ahrens (1961–2023) — In the last months Carsten Ahrens, Oleg Kulik and I have been working on a special exhibition. This is an exhibition of the internationally famous artist born in Ukraine and who is now living in Russia, while currently under house arrest. It can be said that no other artist has so provocatively and radically challenged the viewer and art establishment with his performances in the 1990s and the post-millennium as Oleg Kulik. It was not an easy task. But Carsten, as always found his way, and was able with enthusiasm, insight and open curiosity quickly worked his way into Oleg Kulik’s challenging world. Clearly, a complex undertaking in a time of war (see text below). Working with Carsten was a great pleasure and an eye-opener for the artist, and also for myself, as in all our joint projects undertaken in the past. The exhibitions will remain unforgettable for me. Quite simply wonderful the titles speak for themselves, as in Dieter Hacker ‚’The artist running amok’, Christiane Möbus ‚ ‘Every man for himself’, Homage to Christos Joachimides, ‘Art in times of political struggle’, Sergey Bratkov ‘Heartbreak’, and now Oleg Kulik ‘Anima Animalis’. Here the titles were the agenda. Art and provocative political attitudes were not a contradiction for Carsten, but seen as a challenge. This was where he was in his element. Carsten Ahrens was a companion and a friend. But I particularly admired his uncompromising approach when it came to artists and their work. We would sit together for hours, and I would do my best explaining to him why I was particularly interested in the work of a certain artist. Only later when I read his text, did I fully understand what I had really meant. This was not without a sense of comedy—for he was just as much a master of the art of subtle humour. To speak with the words of Zille, a fine person, a reliable friend, who enriched my life with many motivating words and ideas, for which I feel deeply grateful to him. After a long illness, Carsten succumbed to his suffering much too soon. Our joint exhibition is dedicated to the special memory of my friend Carsten Ahrens. —Volker Diehl

Visit

Niebuhrstr 2

Berlin, NY