Russian artist's wooden heart sculpture falsely linked to Hindu god Krishna
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on July 17, 2023 at 10:15
- 3 min read
- By Anuradha PRASAD, AFP India
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The claim was shared on Twitter on June 16, 2023 by Shri Aacharya Ji, a self-styled guru with over 137,000 followers on the platform.
The post includes a photo of the well-known guru and another that appears to show a wooden heart.
The lengthy caption claims the wooden sculpture contains the heart of the Hindu god, Lord Krishna, which is still alive.
"His heart is still safe, which lies inside the wooden statue of Lord Jagannath and beats the same way. Very few people know this," the Hindi-language tweet reads in part. Both Krishna and Jagannath are said to be incarnations of the Hindu god Vishnu.
It goes on to detail a popular belief that Krishna's living heart has been kept inside the Jagannath temple in Odisha state -- a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Jagannath (archived links here and here).
The post has been retweeted more than 6,500 times.
Other users left comments offering praise to the Hindu god, suggesting they believed the claim was true.
The photo of the wooden heart has been shared hundreds of times alongside similar false claims on Facebook here and here, and on Twitter here and here.
However, the wooden heart seen in the photo is actually a sculpture by a Russian artist, made in 2001.
Art piece
A reverse image search on Google found the same photo published in a review of Russian art at the 2013 Paris Art Fair by Russian outlet Buro 24/7 on March 29, 2013 (archived link).
The review states the wooden heart by Russian artist Dimitri Tsykalov was exhibited by the Gallery Rabouan Moussion in Paris.
"This year, the Paris Art Fair is especially attractive because it represents a real immersion in contemporary Russian art -- for the first time in its history," the article reads in part.
"In total, about 90 Russian artists were exhibited at the Paris Art Fair -- both by Russian and foreign galleries."
Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo shared in the false posts (left) and the wooden heart photo published by Buro 24/7 (right):
French contemporary art magazine Arts Hebdo Medias also published a photo of the wooden heart and identified it as a sculpture by Tsykalov (archived link).
Tsykalov told AFP on June 25 he created the sculpture in 2001 as part of an installation called Anatomy that was exhibited in France in 2002.
"I work with the Gallery Rabouan Moussion in Paris. The gallery conserves this piece of art,” he told AFP by email.
The artist sent AFP a photo of the heart sculpture alongside his other human organ artwork kept at the gallery.
Tsykalov’s website also features the heart sculpture in his portfolio (archived link).
Below is a screenshot of the heart sculpture featured on Tsykalov's website.
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