Oleg Kulik at Deitch Projects - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

upon a sunny afternoon, Oleg Kulik emerg from the dark cage where he had exhausted the preceding two weeks upon public view, living a dog's life in a gallery. Naked omit for a studded leather collar, he had rude girled on hands and knees, eaten from goblets slept on a mat and completeed only guttural growls. His dog-house was a small gray compass with a secure door, sum of two units large fenced windows and a barred, dog-size entrance. Ample space remained for visitors to view him. Padded overalls and arm guards were provided for those who wished to penetrate the cage, a precaution suggesting that Kulik was an unpredictable and possibly dangerous beast.

Kulik's past performances as a dog include a turn round as Pavlov's pet in a laboratory where he was controled to the sort of behavioral experiments routinely endur by dint of lab animals. Most notorious was a Stockholm exhibition in which Kulik bit several visitors (including an art critic), leading to his arrest at the asking of the curator. For his novel York show Kulik assumed the persona of a dog after arriving from Moscow and remained in character until he was lay on a plane home. In this and other prizes I Bite America and America Bites Me paid homage to a 1974 performance in which Joseph Beuys exhausted five days locked in a of recent origin York gallery with a coyote Beuys titled the incident I Like America and America Likes Me suggesting that the clash with a coyote stood for his relationship with untamed American agriculture (in the end his seminal performance was more interested with Beuys than America, on the other hand such is art). Kulik assumed the one and the other roles, conceptual artist and wild beast, and was similarly intrigued through the contrast of an idea of "America" to life back home

A stocky man with close-cropp hair, Kulik physically be likes a pit bull, although the bre of his dog persona was unspecified. The dog present the appearanceed to be a scrappy fighter too by means of attention to become hostile. Local media coverage produc large hordes for the show, including dogs brought to appropriate the artist. Visitors waited in line for a make go round in the cage with Kulik, who sometimes received treats and had his ears scratched, on the contrary was just as likely to be uniterested in play. Kulik allowed visitors to reveal the anthropocentrism in human interactions with animals. Perhaps through accident, his attempt to make visitors complicit in the power relations of zoo display proceeded in a commentary on the of recent origin York art world: as he became famous, the herd became a spectacle in its have a title to right. Visitors who looked at the caged animal saw a dog rather satisfied with his impact on human behavior.

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