Russian Satirist Takes On Ukraine, Western Powers with Calendars and photos.(MT).
Down an alley off Ulitsa Maroseika in central Moscow stands a half-finished glass building with construction debris out front. The building seems an unlikely place for an artist, but it is here that political satirist Andrei Budaev has his workshop.
The inside of the workshop is small, the walls covered with Budaev's modified political images. His 2015 calendars and photo albums are stacked high on every surface.
Budaev is an imposing man in his late 40s, dressed simply in a navy sweater and jeans. He has sleepy eyes but speaks quickly.
Budaev has been doing political caricatures for almost 20 years, since the Yeltsin era. He is best known for re-creating classical paintings, mainly Russian, with the faces of the political figures of the time crafted onto them.
"Not one work of art is protected from him in the history of humanity," German news magazine Der Spiegel sardonically commented a few years ago.
"Budaev's characters are leaders: presidents, ministers, deputies," journalist Alexander Minkin wrote in the foreword to a recent work called "Book VIII." "Budaev's characters make policy. It means that they're not very good?"
Budaev told Der Spiegel that "I bring our politicians back to earth. I want them to understand that they're not gods."
He is particularly fond of The Wanderers, a group of 19th-century Russian painters, and has released a collection of works based on them every year since 2011, featuring privatization architect Anatoly Chubais, President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and even ballet dancer Anastasia Volochkova, among others. Hmmm....I would not mind to find such a calendar in my Christmas stocking :) Read the full story here.
