Andrey Kuzkin: "Every day, I start by reading a news summary of the Russia-Ukraine war. Destroyed and burned-out homes, refugees on both sides, and bodies, bodies, bodies—endless numbers of bodies. You turn your eyes away from the phone and look around, but your gaze is narrowed—you see everything through a frame constructed from dead bodies. This is your context, and this is your reality. You look at the sky, at the light clouds drifting by, and you want to fly far, far away and forget the vast injustice, stupidity, and darkness that engulfs your homeland. The land where you were born and raised, which you loved by circumstance and from which you are now cast out to another foreign country. But you can’t escape, not physically, not even mentally. To do so would betray those who remain at home—your friends, your parents. You’ve already fled, knowing the futility of struggle, the senselessness of yet another sacrifice. Now, all you can do is look at the sky, with eyes narrowed and clouded by death.
All the figures that make up this frame are molded from bread dough with salt. The choice of material is intentional. To me, bread is the ideal, living material for depicting the human body—a body that changes, suffers, and inevitably fades away. The work combines Christian symbolism (bread as the symbol of Christ’s body) with the Russian prison tradition of molding with bread. It reflects the concept of the body as a prison for the soul and the world as a temporary place of existence. This piece was created in the second year of my forced emigration to France. Compared to the works I made in Russia, it is more decorative, influenced by French culture, baroque architectural ornaments, vignettes, cartouches, and so on."