An Alternative to Kitsch

Those who failed to get even a spoon would be happy to get the leavings from the master's table, ignoring the cockroaches scurrying between their fingers. I am surprised only that there is something left in the refrigerators at all. In search of an answer I turned to the director of the Honchari (Ceramists) Artistic Association, Tetiana ANDRIYENKO.

Q: Ms. Andriyenko, is it true that Honchari is Ukraine's only salon specializing in ceramics?

A: Absolutely. And our salon is also a creative association patronized by fifty artists and about 200 others working on a contractual basis.

Q:. You have enough experience to judge today's major trend, the Kyiv school of ceramics. Would you mind enlarging
on the subject?

A: Of course not. I do appreciate this trend and school, and I should mention the positive role played by our masters: Mylovzorov, Rapai, and the Isupovs. All of them came from monumental art. The early 1980s saw a kind of creative construction boom when subway stations, cafes, and large hotels needed to be decorated. Naturally, monumental ceramics was no exception, experiencing a creative upsurge. Suffice it to remember the panel on the facade of the House of Creative Collectives done by Rapai. Now that was true author's creativity! Also, tribute is due Oleksandr Mylovzorov who took up ceramics and experimented a great deal deserving every praise. He succeeded in opening the Triptych Salon representing these and many other artists. Many of them would later join us. In the early 1990s, Andriy Ilyinsky and his group also started working for us. A sufficiently democratic salon had appeared in the city for the first time. After all it takes membership in the Ukrainian Union of Artists to have one's works exhibited elsewhere in Ukraine.

Q: Frankly, your salon displays works that seem far ahead of what we traditionally regard as Ukrainian ceramics. Why?

A: I simply just don't understand any references to our displays as "non-traditional Ukrainian ceramics." Nonsense! All these works are done by people born, raised, and educated in Ukraine. This is what we know as the Kyiv school of ceramics.

Q: We all know that every artist in Ukraine faces the same problem, earning a living. In other words, they have to choose between creativity and money. How do you see this situation?

A: Several years ago I would hear from many of them something like "birds don't need money." A lot has changed since then. Money is something we all need now. I tell them, "whatever you do, you are artists with talent and skill." Makieyeva's cup will always be the way she did it, and same is true of Ilyinsky, In short, I think that a true master can always preserve his creativity in even commercial and utilitarian assignments.

Q: Has it occurred to you that the overall creative level on Andriyivsky Uzviz has been dropping of late?

A: It has, and you are right, of course. The very image is being smeared by all those hefty skin-head boys trading matrioshkas. When I came to work here some of those self-styled masters said that decent artists would never have their works displayed here. Indeed, where are all their works displayed now? Nowhere. It is also true, however, that the artistic level was much higher then.

Q: In other words, is Andriyivsky Uzviz slowly but surely descending to the level of kitsch?

A: It is and there is no denying it.

Q: Why?

"People have to find a way to survive. I mean that artists have to make their works adjusting them to the tastes of those who can afford to buy them. The intelligentsia is practically washed up. Today's teachers, engineers, doctors, others like them cannot afford pictures, even for the sake of their children. And I just can't understand what the state is doing about this situation. Nothing, it seems. Is it going to raise our children in any rational manner? I don't know. Consider this: one now has to pay to enter the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra Monastery of the Caves! Four hryvnias! So how much do you have to pay if you visit with your wife and children? It has been suggested to us more than once that we charge an entrance fee at Honchari. How could we? Of course, if we did we would have less trouble in terms of bar brawls and theft, and we would have some revenue. Yes, we could, considering that we have schoolchildren visiting us by classes (something like a Tatar invasion). But we never would. There is a woman who often visits us and buys something now and then. I mean she did, now she doesn't, because she's on pension. She comes and she says, "It's like visiting a museum." If we charged entrance fees she'd never come again.