Why do they behave provocatively?

Art Kyiv, which began its history four years ago and made the Ukrainian Home an art gallery for the first time, is now embracing modern-day art, including its latest branch known as contemporary art. Incidentally, it is Pinchuk Art Center that helped the Ukrainian general public to perceive the esthetics of actual art. It is owing to this center that we saw that there can be a long line to a museum and that Damien Hirst, with his esthetics of death, no longer shocks anybody but, instead, is received with a fair share of irony. So this event occupied as many as four floors of the Ukrainian Home, which hosted Art Kyiv Contemporary this time. Yet, it turned out that even such a grandiose presence does not promote understanding of the very idea of contemporary art. Let us try to come closer to this understanding, without laying claim to ultimate knowledge.

To avoid showering such empty clich s as subjective perception of art (it would be better to shower conceptualisms, especially in this subject), I will at once tell you about the reaction of the first visitors of the Art Kyiv Contemporary exhibit, which I overheard near the works of the German artist Gregor Schneider, who the press release claims is universally known for his space-and-object hoaxes. At first a surprising “So what?,” then an almost hysterical “So what?!”

While it is more or less clear with classical art, even with due account of the “perception error,” the first encounter with contemporary art usually raises such questions as “So what?” or “What is this?” These are in no way rhetorical questions. They require an answer, all the more so that Art Kyiv is now putting this modern and topical art into a new, broader, social context than Pinchuk Art Center has been doing up to now.

What is actual art? Does it really happen to be so topical (a play on words in Ukrainian – Ed.)? What criteria of its value are worthy of a discussion in addition to, naturally, the financial aspect, which, to tell the truth, is one of the main factors in today’s commercial art world (for we are rather far from the romantic times of unrecognized geniuses). Naturally, there is no use looking for a concrete answer. Moreover, according to the Ivano-Frankivsk-based gallery owner (Marginesy gallery) and artist Anatolii Zvizhynsky, this notion has not been legalized, at least in Ukraine.

“It is still to be legalized,” Anatolii says. “There is not a single establishment, institution or gallery that would claim it represents actual art. This is why it is difficult to give any definitions. In fact, this phenomenon exists in the underground in this country. Yet one should not say that this is bad. Many envy us, because there is no pressure and control on the part of governmental institutions.”

Without laying claim to encyclopedic knowledge, let us try to outline such thing as actual art on the basis of the words of those who “stew in this actual pot.”

Arsen SAVADOV, one of the most prominent Ukrainian artists of today:

“Only art allows one to be free today. No other walk of life is capable of this. Artistic life is guided by nothing but freedom. Poetry, freedom, and art do not exist and are not considered separately. Artists are hunting for at least a tiny fraction of free spirit.”

BUDDA, art expert, pedagogue, interior designer:

“Art is a very subtle manifestation of freedom that can be grabbed. Whenever an artist encounters freedom, he must do something. It is Europe that gave birth to the conceptualism inherent in contemporary art. It became clear at a certain moment that it is not enough to push feelings around, as it was done in the 19th century. And each of the styles that emerged in the late 19th century had a concept and a manifestation of its own. Even impressionists had already been manifestation-type artists. Social problems, as well as all kinds of things that have nothing to do with feelings began to intrude into art. It became necessary to think with one’s brains. The so-called styles vanished. Modern art is the last of them. And what we call modernism is a set of schools that may emerge, disappear, and reappear in a reconsidered shape as remixes. A DJ job of sorts. Music is no longer composed: it is being thrown around in the form of discs.”

Roger PFUND, Art Kyiv guest of honor, “the king of Swiss contemporary art,” one of the mostly acclaimed authors of the artistic expression of national currencies (Switzerland, France, China, Malaysia, and other countries):

“First of all, contemporary art is an art that is being created today by modern-day artists. Yet we can say that such thing as ‘contemporary’ emerged as long ago as the 19th century. At the time, artists invented things that are still topical today. In general, it is a very broad notion. As fashion obeys no laws today – you can put on anything you want, – so art exists out of the bounds of laws and restrictions.” Ideological ‘lawlessness’ goes hand in hand with technical polyphony: the media are actively supplanting traditional techniques. Among the paintings that Pfund exhibited at Art Kyiv is a series of the portraits of Maria Callas. Although executed in the same, albeit original, manner and having the same plot (if it is fair at all to speak of plots here), they simultaneously produce different artistic meanings, which, in turn, make one composition – a global inter-canvas of sorts. Classical art cannot do so!

Oleksandr SOLOVIOV, one of the leading Ukrainian experts on actual art, regular contributor to the Milan-published Flash Art, research associate at the Institute of Modern Art Problems, Pinchuk Art Center curator at Art Kyiv, presented his own project Fleshka and a collection of 10 video-compositions by the artists Stanislav Voliazlovsky (with the participation of the Totem studios), Ihor Husiev, the R.E.P studio, Volodymyr Kuznetsov, Lada Nakonechna, Illia Chichkan, Mykola Ridny, and Oleksandr Vereshchak. He says that today’s video art is video misunderstanding:

“It is something instantaneous, an ‘epoch’s accumulator’ of sorts. The surrounding reality seems to become transparent owing to this large number of operational systems. The footage is changing all the time. Everybody around is filming something. It is no longer the epoch of video art; it is an epoch of video misunderstanding, an epoch of Youtube and Facebook. The camera has been desacralized beyond recognition.”

Incidentally, the cult of the artist as a creator is also, by all accounts, in the past. The one who has come to the fore is the curator who has shadowed the authority of an artist with his bulky body. He is now the key figure of the artistic process.

Although some people do and will consider contemporary art quite a disputable thing, it is sending you a personal challenge. It prompts you, to quote the above-mentioned Budda, “to think with your own brains,” seek out parallels, art quotations and hints, and compels you to broaden your horizons and contexts. Actual art does not like naive spectators who hope to see beautiful pictures and are exclusively guided by intuition. It requires intellect. Now, over to you!

The exhibit remains open on October 29 to November 7 in the Ukrainian Home from 11.00 to 20.00.