Vladimir Kazanevsky

I was pleased to attend the opening of the exhibition of the great Ukraine artist Vladimir Kazanevsky in the ECC on 27 September.

Rudy Gheysens and Vladimir Kazanevsky

The exhibition gave me the answer to the question why Kazanevsky portraits so many headless people in his drawings. There is a philosophy involved:

'People with their own heads are supposed to be happy, healthy and intelligent. There would be no more wars, drugs, prostitution ... But they have deliberately turned their heads away. They have decided that the soul was in their heels or in their hearts, their gallbladders or their stomachs, but not in their heads. This is how they began to live. They no longer know how to think for themselves, and a government without a head does not know where it is going. If you look around yourself, you notice this results in a 'headless' society.'

That evening, I had the opportunity to buy two books of the artist. One of them is Homo Gibber (Daedalos Verlag, Basel, 2007, ISBN 978-3-905774-02-3). As with the drawings and cartoons of Kazanevsky, this is again a very odd book, "a novel without words". It's about the hunchback.
On the back cover of the book we read:

"The hunchback -ancient mystical symbol for folded angel's wings as well as for dark passions, hidden sins and human confusion- is used in the 'novel without words' as a characteristic feature of a creature that does not dare or care to use its highest human potential. Vladimir Kazanevsky's manifesto is a compelling one: Hunchbacks of the world - straighten up!. The gorgeous and humorous drawings will leave nobody untouched."

drawing a dedication for me...

Learn more:
Kazanevsky at Cartoon Gallery
Best Cartoons: gallery