The Arms That Shook the System: Kovanda, Havel, and the Art of Disobedience

The Renaissance Inception: Decoding Botticelli’s $92 Million Puzzle

In this episode of The Bigger Picture, Dr Peter Tuka explores Sandro Botticelli’s Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Botticelli_-_Portrait_of_a_Young_Man_Holding_a_Roundel.jpg], one of the most intriguing masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. This art history podcast episode examines the painting’s mysterious identity, its extraordinary 14th-century saint roundel attributed to Bartolommeo Bulgarini, and the deeper meanings behind Botticelli’s unusual composition. From Renaissance Florence, Medici patronage, and humanism to memento mori, Neo-Platonic philosophy, Gothic art, and the rise of naturalism, this episode unpacks how a single Florentineportrait can reveal the cultural, spiritual, and intellectual transformation of 15th-century Italy. If you are interested in Botticelli, Renaissance art, Old Master paintings, art analysis, visual symbolism, and the history of Western art, this episode offers a compelling deep dive into one of the most famous and enigmatic portraits ever sold at auction. Sandro Botticelli, Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Botticelli_-_Portrait_of_a_Young_Man_Holding_a_Roundel.jpg], c.1480, tempera on poplar wood, 59x39cm, Private Collection

Painting Begins Where the World Ends: The Psychedelic Attack of Oleg Holosiy

In this episode of The Bigger Picture, Dr Peter Tuka explores Oleg Holosiy’s monumental 1990 painting Psychedelic Attack of the Blue Rabbits [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/psychedelic-attack-of-the-blue-rabbits-84508] – a key work of the Ukrainian New Wave and a haunting, large-scale example of Neo-Expressionist painting shaped by Perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union. From Holosiy’s own writing (“Painting begins where the world ends”) to the artwork’s fever-dream imagery ofelectric-blue, humanoid rabbits, this art history podcast unpacks the painting’s politics, liminality, and metaphysical “inner space,” tracing connections to Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin’s On the Line of Fire, surrealist automatism, and the anxieties of transition in 1990s Ukraine. If you’re searching for a deep dive into Ukrainian contemporary art, Soviet and post-Soviet culture, Glasgow Museums hidden treasures, or the meaning behind Psychedelic Attack of the Blue Rabbits, this episode is your essential listening. Oleg Holosiy, Psychedelic Attack of the Blue Rabbits [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/psychedelic-attack-of-the-blue-rabbits-84508], oil on canvas, 200x300cm, Glasgow Museums Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, On the Line of Fire [https://rusmuseumvrm.ru/data/collections/painting/18_19/zhb_1894/index.php?lang=en], 1616, oil on canvas, 196x275cm, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

The World on its Head: A Tribute to Georg Baselitz (1938-2026)

In this bonus episode of The Bigger Picture, Dr Peter Tuka explores Portrait of Elke I [https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/844405](1969) by German artist Georg Baselitz — one of his first upside-down (inverted) paintings that helped redefine figurative painting in post-war German art. Through a close visual analysis, we unpack Baselitz’s radical inversion technique, his idea of creating visual irritation, and howhis work sits between abstraction and representation, often linked to Neo-Expressionism and contemporary art history. The episode also traces Baselitz’s life between East and West Germany and the “destroyed order” that shaped his aggressive brushwork, before turning to the intimate story of ElkeKretzschmar, his wife and lifelong muse. If you’re searching for an art history podcast on Georg Baselitz, inverted paintings, German Neo-Expressionism, or the meaning behind Portrait of Elke I, this episode is for you. Georg Baselitz, Portrait of Elke I [https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/844405], 1969, synthetic resin emulsion paints on canvas, 162x130cm, The Metropolitan Museum, New York Georg Baselitz, The Wood on its Head [https://www.wikiart.org/en/georg-baselitz/the-wood-on-its-head-1969], 1969, oil on canvas, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany Louis-Ferdinand von Rayski, Wermsdorf Forest [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Ferdinand_von_Rayski_-_Wermsdorf_Forest_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=index&utm_content=original], c.1859, oil on canvas, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany

Decommissioned Dreams and New Beginnings: Nikita Gashunin and Art After the USSR

In Episode 6 of The Bigger Picture, host Dr Peter Tuka explores The Fly [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-fly-294040] (1991) by Russian artist Nikita Gashunin — a piece of Russian modern sculpture and post-Soviet contemporary art held in the Glasgow Museums collection. Created as the Soviet Union collapse unfolded in 1991, this striking found-object sculpture — an industrial assemblage welded from salvaged machinery — transforms scrap into an oversized “robotic fly” that feels both alive and weaponised. We unpack how Gashunin’s materials, welding, and militarised details echo Perestroika and Glasnost — Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms — and why The Fly reads as political art: a reflection on power, ideology, and the legacy of art and propaganda in the late USSR. The sculpture’s dual identity (insect and fighter jet, artwork and weapon) becomes a perfect case study in liminality — that unsettling “in-between” threshold where identities and systems dissolve, and a new order has not yet formed. The episode also follows The Fly’s journey to Scotland, connecting post-Soviet cultural change to Glasgow’s transformation from heavy engineering and shipbuilding on the River Clyde to a modern centre of arts and culture. We revisit the late-1980s cultural exchange between East and West, including the city’s Soviet arts showcase New Beginnings festival (1989) and the momentum that helped shape Glasgow City of Culture (1990) — a context that helps explain how this “hidden treasure” entered Glasgow’s collections in the first place. Nikita Gashunin, The Fly [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-fly-294040], 1991, metal assemblage, mirror and wood, 91x61x30cm, Glasgow Museums Next Episode: Oleg Holosiy, Psychedelic Attack of the Blue Rabbits [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/psychedelic-attack-of-the-blue-rabbits-84508], 1990, oil on canvas, 200x300cm, Glasgow Museums

The Arms That Shook the System: Kovanda, Havel, and the Art of Disobedience

Prague, 1976. One man. Arms wide open. A crowdthat won’t come near. In this episode of The Bigger Picture, Dr Peter Tuka dives into Czech conceptual art and Eastern European performance art through Jiří Kovanda’s action art on Wenceslas Square [https://monoskop.org/images/5/53/Kovanda_Jiri_1976_November_19th.jpg] — an experiment in public space, body politics, and everyday resistance under state surveillance inCommunist Czechoslovakia’s Normalization era (Cold War, Soviet bloc). With photographic documentation as our evidence, we connect art under communism to dissident culture via Václav Havel’s The Power of the Powerless, post-totalitarianism, self-censorship, and “living in truth.” Press play for art history with political bite and follow for more Central and Eastern European art stories. Jiří Kovanda, Untitled, 19th November 1976 [https://monoskop.org/images/5/53/Kovanda_Jiri_1976_November_19th.jpg], black and white photograph Mark Carney's speech [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btqHDhO4h10] at the World Economic Forum, davos, January 2026In the next episode: Nikita Gashunin, The Fly [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-fly-294040], 1991, assembled sculpture, Glasgow Museums