In the latest twist in a series of art world scandals that have gone to the heart of Church-State relations, a Russian artist who had been critical of and was criticised by the Russian Orthodox Church has disappeared without a trace.
Anna Mikhalchuk, a 52-year-old feminist poet and artist who works under the name Alchuk left her home in the western Berlin district of Charlottenburg on the afternoon of 21 March and has not been seen since, German police said in a statement. She has lived in Berlin since 2007, when her husband, Mikhail Ryklin, a philosopher, accepted a post at the city's Humboldt University.
Police have combed a lake and gardens near her apartment and turned up no evidence of foul play so far, but Ryklin told The New York Times he feared that she was targeted. "There were religious fanatics who really hated her," said Ryklin. He said it was not easy for German police to imagine that someone could be targeted for their artistic activity, because they think, said Ryklin, "It can’t happen here."
Alchuk was tried, and acquitted in 2005, on charges of inciting religious hatred after a contemporary art exhibition called "Caution! Religion" opened at Moscow's Sakharov Museum in 2003. One of the exhibits depicted Jesus on a Coca-Cola advertisement with the words "This is my blood" written in English.
The exhibition was ransacked by activists from a Russian Orthodox church in central Moscow. They damaged or destroyed many of the works. Alchuk's piece was a composition made of medallions that she found when cleaning out her apartment during a move and intended, she said at the time, to explore questions of salvation and religious belief.
The museum's director, Yuri Samodurov, and curator, Lyudmila Vasilovskaya, were convicted and fined, and not those who attacked the institution.
Samodurov said he thinks, however, that Alchuk was most likely the victim of a crime unrelated to art.
