To the summits

The Grand Salon of Sculpture 2008 opened at Kyiv’s Ukrainian Home as part of the project Kyiv Art. This is one of those cases where annotations can be fully trusted. The organizers are advertising the salon as an unprecedented cultural event. This is no exaggeration.

Quantitative parameters are important. The Ukrainian Home has held sculpture exhibits before, but they have seldom occupied most of the exhibition halls: the first two stories and the lobby. The exhibit features all the worthy Ukrainian sculptors: there are over 40 names, hundreds of works, and a broad range of styles. Needless to say, the show is given real weight by three names: Johann Georg Pinzel, Alexander Archipenko, and Auguste Rodin.

Pinzel, whose works were provided by the Lviv Art Gallery and the Johann Pinzel Museum of Sacred Architecture in the capital city of Galicia (Halychyna), is sometimes described as the Ukrainian or Eastern European Michelangelo. There is a kernel of truth here because Pinzel, like Michelangelo in his later work, was a Baroque artist according to his thinking.

At the Ukrainian Home Kyivites can explore wooden figures from churches that were decorated by the artist, including a large crucifix, the centerpiece of the exhibit “Master Pinzel and his School,” which includes figures of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the prophet John, and biblical scenes with Samson tearing apart the jaws of a lion and Abraham’s sacrifice (all from the altar in the Roman Catholic church in Hodovytsia, a village near Lviv); an angel (from the Roman Catholic church in Horodenka, a town in Lviv oblast); Saint Felix with a child (from a convent in Mariampil near Halych, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast); and the bas-reliefs The Annunciation and The Guardian Angel (from the deacon’s doors of the iconostasis at the Church of the Holy Protection in Buchach, a town in Ternopil oblast).

These works clearly show that Pinzel gravitated to the Baroque style and its later version, Rococo, adhering to the marked theatricality that was germane to both styles. His saints and angels are brimming with energy and movement, as befits Baroque characters. They even seem to be performing, playing their predetermined roles with an eye to both the plot and the audience. Pinzel’s style consists of such openly dramatic effects, with the personae frankly posing for the viewer and making highly dramatic gestures.

In this sense, the Galician artist can be characterized as a sculptor and virtuoso stage director.

The works of Archipenko and Rodin were on display courtesy of the well-known art collector Ihor Voronov. Archipenko, who was called the “Picasso of sculpture” and was one of the heroes of rowdy French Dadaism, was subsequently recognized as a classic in the US. He was born and raised in Kyiv, where he studied at the College of Art in 1902-05 with Volodymyr Burliuk and Dmytro Bohomazov. He was expelled after he accused the teaching staff of academism and obsolete views. Archipenko left Kyiv for Paris, traveling through Moscow. In 1923, when he was 36 years old, he immigrated to the US, where his talent blossomed.

Archipenko’s revolution in art is based on a markedly simple idea: to create not only volumetric shapes but also the empty spaces within and around them. He said later that he had conceived this idea in Kyiv. One day his parents bought two flower vases, each an exact replica of the other. He positioned one next to the other and saw something like the ghost of a third vase, created by the space between the other two. Archipenko admitted that later he started “seeing empty space everywhere, which reminded me of various objects. I was horrified, because I could see so many of them; this led me to start using such objects in my sculptures. I replaced convex shapes with concave ones, filled-in space with empty space, creating symbols of figures or objects that were not there.”

The Archipenko works on display at the Ukrainian Home demonstrate various aspects of his creative personality, including his famous “empty” sculptures, like Woman Combing Her Hair (1914), which is actually a hieroglyph of femininity captured in metal. It is difficult to imagine a more perfect expression of a female body. Archipenko also created sculptures that extended into space while retaining more traditional forms: Seated Female Nude (1914), which is full of pagan strength; Torso in Space (Whitney Museum in New York City, 1929), a model of classical studies; the enchanting Blue Dancer (1913), and the unearthly light marble Flat Torso. After exploring these creations, you become reassured that contemporary art, the way we know it, is in many respects determined by a genius, a man who identified himself in all catalogs as “Alexander Archipenko from Ukraine.”

It is hardly possible to say anything new about Auguste Rodin. Most of the creations displayed at the salon are small bronze copies of his famous works, such as The Thinker, Monument to Balzac, Eternal Spring, Adam, Eve, The Cathedral, parts of his cultural composition The Burghers of Calais, and The Gates of Hell. There is also his absolutely singular marble sculpture Young Girl with Roses on Her Hat. You can keep exploring these works of art for as long as you live and find something new in them every time; you can talk to them and learn something each time.

It is understandable that modern Ukrainian artists are on an altogether different level. Any comparisons are immaterial and irrelevant, but sometimes it seems as though some artists are striving to be compared to Rodin or Archipenko. This is not the worst option. While studying some sculptures displayed on the third floor of the Ukrainian Home, the viewer can visualize the kind of interiors in which they will be displayed after the work changes hands: dripping with wealth and poor taste. Substituting true art with kitsch is an eternal problem, although it seems even more manifest in sculpture. Of course, there are enough talented, original, even witty creations on display, but our artists are still deep in the shadows compared to these distinguished names.

This by no means belittles the importance of the Grand Salon of Sculpture. These kinds of exhibits are meant to give an impetus to the arts. The show at the Ukrainian Home is further proof that our national culture is taking its first tentative steps toward the civilized realm, where we once were. It is a thorny road, but even if we move along it slowly, we will eventually produce our own Rodins and Archipenkos.

The Grand Salon of Sculpture 2008 ends on March 15.

COMMENTS

Ivan MARCHUK, artist:

There’s absolutely no way that I can compare our realistic sculpture to Rodin’s works. But there are some absolutely brilliant works of modern sculpture. At the show I discovered a sculpture by Andrii Severynko. Even Rodin never dreamed of creating something like this and would never have created something like it because he worked in an entirely different field. I have no interest in realistic sculpture. Realism as a creative trend long ago receded into the past. Rodin did what he could, and the same is true of Michelangelo. The two of them did what others were unable to do. We now have to look for new forms because trying to duplicate by producing worse replicas doesn’t make sense.

We have sculptors who are working on a professional level that the rest of the world can only envy. We are not poor in talent, we are just pretending to be poor — rather, we are being made to look poor by others, who keep saying that we are lagging behind. That’s why we don’t have an advanced art industry. There is no one to praise, and no one praises each other for our creative accomplishments. This must be done on a large scale. Every country has an art industry which, like metal, forges talents and squeezes everything out of it; everything then comes to the surface. Here no true talent can be lost. But in Ukraine, everything is still done according to old Soviet habits.

Taras PETRIV, head of the National Commission for Freedom of Speech and Development of the Information Sphere:

I have always stressed that we must take care of our contemporary artists, with an eye to the new creative trends they are offering to the rest of the world. An artist in today’s Ukraine must create works that will amaze the international community. Oleh Skrypka talked me into attending this exhibit. I came, thinking that the 21st century must be expecting from us not only new creative ideas and aesthetic trends but also some revised ideas concerning our past. If I were to assess modern artists, particularly those in Ukraine, I would say that they often tend to destroy stereotypes. I happen to be well informed about the creative endeavors of two Ivano-Frankivsk artists, namely Anatolii Zvizhynsky and Rostyslav Koterlin. I think the first of the two is an artist of world caliber. This is something new in Ukraine’s creative thought. Juxtaposing modern Ukrainian artists against Rodin is a very interesting, unexpected, and important project.

I believe that it is necessary to speak very harshly about our government’s failure in not granting any preferential terms and conditions to its art market. I can’t think of many art galleries or art centers that have opened in Ukraine since the 1990s. Neither can I think of many art centers that have opened in Kyiv. We have an excellent creative environment, but our artists have to walk their separate, winding pathways unassisted before they can find their place in the sun. Speaking of the art market, we are seeing a number of new and interesting art managers joining it. Five to seven years ago Ukrainian management was a slapdash, makeshift affair. At the time, many people were into antiquities or acted as go-betweens. Today, we have Yevhen Karas, Viktor Akhmatov, and others. There are also young art managers, who are enlisting artists and forming creative centers and Ukraine’s art market.

Oleh SKRYPKA, singer:

If you aren’t a specialist, you wonder when you look at certain sculptures, telling yourself that people must have lost their sense of form or harmony and cannot repeat a Rodin. But in fact, artists like Rodin are like classical music pieces or lyrics for a modern musician. It’s not that the musician is no longer interested; it’s just that the times are different and one must keep pace, and artists are moving on.

We also have to understand that the development of sculpture depends on the state and statehood, and its flowering. We need a renaissance. If we create this renaissance with our efforts, then our sculptures will be “strong” and will probably acquire new forms. Strange as it may seem, our statehood is also an important factor. We have strong artists, but — if you will pardon my saying so — an artist must be promoted, have a work budget, and find people who will buy his creations and order new ones. This economic issue, about which we never talk, must be present. However, this is possible only in an advanced society.

Vasyl BYKOV, sculptor:

I feel wonderful standing next to Rodin’s works. Who feels bad in their presence? Everyone who loves and understands art feel the same way. For my exhibit I selected creative works that have nothing of the salon about them, even though this is a salon of sculpture. Minutes ago I met my friend, the graphic artist and photographer Viktor Khomenko. He said he was impressed by the number of works on display at the salon. Of course, there are salon-style works, but mostly there are genuinely creative works here. Ukraine has matured a great deal. Compared to what we had before, right now there is an explosion, a very big explosion. In the days when I was a student, if I created the things that I am doing now, there would have been a scandal. I would have packed all this in a box and no one would ever see it. There is truly an explosion now and everyone sees it. People are working creatively and trying to express themselves as artists.