text and interviews
Having grown up an orphan in the Urals, Koshelokhov moved to Leningrad in the 1960s and enrolled in medical school. He was kicked out a year later for his participation in an existentialist reading circle. Surviving on a series of odd jobs, he continued his pursuit of philosophy at the Public Library and became a well-known habitu of the legendary Saigon cafe. There, he made friends with the city's burgeoning crowd of unofficial artists, which included Valerii Kleverov. Koshelokhov began working as Kleverov's “dealer,” selling the artist's works from the impromptu gallery he opened in his room in a communal flat. Apparently stunned by this selflessness (Koshelokhov took no commission and ignored the denunciations of his neighbors), Kleverov one day announced to his young friend that he, too, was an artist.
Although Koshelokhov later realized that this “annunciation” had been a “Taoist joke,” he took Kleverov at his word and set to work. Thirty years later, his single-minded pursuit of the answer to the questions inadvertently posed by his “master” and his own amateur philosophical studies—What does it mean to be an artist? What does it mean to be human? —has generated thousands of powerful, life-affirming assemblages, pastels, and paintings...
an essay by slavist and cultural critic Thomas Campbell
a conversation with Boris “Bob” Koshelokhov
материалы на русском:
Искусство и жизнь по Б.Н.Кошелохову статья Екатерины Андреевой
