Museum of Authority: Le fils de l'Homme, 2014

Vladimir Kolesnikov loves to search for the synergistic potential of striking images of the popular culture. The artwork Museum of Authority: Le fils de l'Homme combines two symbols of the 20th century – Le fils de l'homme, a 1964 painting by the Belgian surrealist René Magritte, and Winston Churchill, the renowned British Prime Minister. The artist hides the politician's face behind an apple, paying homage to the Belgian artist. As René Magritte himself once said: "There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present". Vladimir Kolesnikov says: “It is a painting illustrating a utopian past. Surely, in history, there are no givens, but it would be interesting to imagine a past where world conservative leaders would be connoisseurs of contemporary art. Imagine, they got their portraits, for example, from René Magritte".