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New Symbolism

18 May, 00:00

By Olena YAHODOVSKA, art critic An exhibition of works by sculptor Anatoly Valiyev opened last Thursday at the Soviart gallery. His sculptures combine the dignity and completeness of the classics with the thinking of a modernist. The themes are highly variable: from angels to dancers, and from Vrubel and Dante to Zerov and Diaghilev. The geography of exhibitions and monuments he has left to cities extends from Ravenna to Melbourne via Paris, Berlin, and Tokyo. On the way, he got right into the history of modern world art by erecting a monument dedicated to the memory of a Kyiv genius Oleksandr Arkhypenko.

The bronze, stone, wood, and marble of his sculptures harbor the imaginary, rather than tangible, features of romanticism. The sculptor always finds precisely the main plastic motive - a centripetal dialogue of shape - in a soft and picturesque interpretation of form, the proportions and execution of details, and general movement. The plastic concept of each of his sculptures tries to resolve the eternal conflict between things, improvisation and completeness, analysis and intuition.

Gothic and art nouveau, constructivism and postmodernism have brought into his creativity the effect of complete conventionality, and the sculptor's language of style has been enriched by "natural" rhythms and "vitality." As an artist, Anatoly Valiyev rapidly overcomes the boundaries of the influences that formed him, relying on the "sigh" of the last phase of the expiring twentieth century and trying to remain the mouthpiece of its plastic ideas.

Newspaper output №:

№18, (1999)

Section

Culture