Toxik Komsomolets

Toxic Komsomolets Publishing House is a one-man media platform I established in 2009. After completing my degree focused on political cartooning in South Africa, I realized that's what I actually wanted to become—a proper political cartoonist, not a researcher. I contacted all the major publications of the time, to no avail, so I kept tinkering on my own.

My first Winzawod solo was open call-based. It was curated by Arseny Zhilyaev, who suggested I look at the whole exhibition as a medium. Clueless as I was, I tried, and step by step developed a total approach where my «newspaper» covered all of the exhibition's space. Oracal vinyls came in handy, with my watercolors mounted right into bold layouts. I merged the Communist-era wall newspaper medium with an Anglo-political cartooning visual approach.

Later on, I ran commissions for the 2nd Ural Industrial Biennale in Ekaterinburg (2012, curated by Arseny Zhilyaev), Kiev Biennale (2012, curated by Ekaterina Degot), as well as a number of independent occasional publications. Over the years, Toxic Komsomolets appeared as an exhibition, SMS-list, and a weekly email newsletter. Related projects include Mechanical Robespierre Editions—an actual publishing house where I curated, edited, designed, and published poetry collections and works of fiction.

Techniques

Inspiration

Political cartooning