Black Gay Artist Alexander Kargaltsev Sits on “White Man Chair” In Response to Dasha Zhukovas “Black Woman Chair”

It was only a matter of time before this happened, I just knew this was going to spark a racial war and rebuttals. The average Russian is racist, I am speaking from my encounter with some of them that I have met, a former classmates experience living in Russia for 3 months…I bet Dasha did not expect the backlash, because no right thinking person would expect to get away with such prejudice if not that she believes it is acceptable.

Black Gay Russian artist Alexander Kargaltsev recently issued a rebuttal to Dasha Zhukova’s controversial ‘Black Woman Chair’ photograph: an image of him, naked, sitting on a nude ‘white man’ chair.

He told the Huffington Post, “I was forced to leave Russia because of the discrimination I experienced as a gay [man]. I’m disappointed that the tradition of xenophobia is so strong in my home country that such an image of Ms. Zhukova can appear as if it is normal and unremarkable. Russian people do not seem to realize when people offend the principle of color, nationality, sexual orientation and so on.”

See the NSFW image below:

He went on to tell OutThere Magazine, “[I]t deeply saddens me to see that racism is now being glamorized and thus made not only acceptable but trendy by the likes of Ms. Zhukova. My own composition reverses the visual injustice and offense perpetrated by that editorial and in a way restores the equality of genders, races, and sexual orientations. Sadly, I understand very well that my work will be seen by most Russians as provocative and inappropriate, while that repulsive image (published on Martin Luther King’s Day of all days in a year) will hardly make anyone over there shake their head.”

Alexander’s image differs from Zhukova’s significantly:  the man in the picture is not a mannequin but a human being, who voluntarily agreed to pose for the photograph. Dasha is clothed, and the mannequin barely covered while both men in Alexander’s photograph are both naked.

What is your thought on this matter? Has Alexander gone too far? 

♥Lara