Appeal to Beauty

“Appeal to Beauty” is the joint project of Tetiana Myronova, Lavra gallery director, and Rainald Schumacher, German art curator. The paintings, sculptures, and installations are dedicated to exploring the beauty as an aesthetic category. According to Schumacher, these pieces represent the beauty as a harmonic, respectful, and sustainable co-existence in the world. “The concept of beauty is very much connected with human relationships. The beauty is a major force of balancing the society,” argues Schumacher.

“How to prevent separatism in the house,” a touching series by Alevtyna Kakhidze, draws parallels to the current political situation in Ukraine. But above all, the series create a personal story of two people and a house, which is in need of love and care. Four pictures accompanied with texts compose four scenarios on the topic of “the relationship between the house owners, which is not as beautiful as before.” The house itself becomes worried, hopeful or complacent. It is a living creature, albeit completely dependent on its hosts.

The display features many works by Tetiana Malynovska, exploring the world of the woman. The works include ceramics, acrylic paintings, and “From the bottom” embroidery series. “I like embroidery, because it alters something, and therefore transforms it, by puncturing. The puncturing becomes a modification that makes things better,” says Malynovska. “I love things that cause change, amusement, and ambiguous associations. I love the beauty: women, champagne, flowers, horses, seashells. Everyone needs the beauty, as it makes a person ready for miracles.”

In the corner of the exhibition hall there is a bed with colorful bed linens. The prints on the sheets and pillowcases are the works of the artist Anatolii Bielov. The        pictures are repeated on the wall above the bed; the bulk of these pictures are from the “Friends on Facebook” series, featuring the portraits and profile information of the author’s social network friends. The author had not met all of them personally – some of the friends may even have no idea that they are featured in the exhibition. The portraits represent Bielov’s attempt to contact the people living in the virtual world. “My works featured here demonstrate how art becomes design,” says Bielov. “In the beginning there are paintings – the art objects; then they appear on bed sheets and cups. And the portraits themselves are hanging above the bed like the wallpaper.”

Philosophical mood is set by melancholic and concise artwork of Hamlet Zinkivsky. A hamster wheel, an empty plate, an almost weightless ball – the void requires something to fill it: an action, a conversation, a feeling. “My vision of beauty does not concur with the generally accepted context,” says Zinkivsky. “I am interested in exhibiting the pieces that expand one’s outlook on the beauty, that give rise to new ideas. I can admire a garbage can or a battered old wall.” Zinkivsky compares the skill of seeing the beauty to religion.

The flowers as a manifestation of the beauty feature in the artwork of Ksenia Hnylytska. The artist created the “Little Bribes” series, which is composed of pictures of irises, roses, and other flowers, which were then given to different people. Afterwards, Hnylytska took photos of her paintings in the interior of their new owners – for instance, in the medicine cabinet, or on the shelf next to some bottles. The captions to these photos define the major idea of the whole exhibition: “In these cruel times it is easy to lose the delicacy of perception; that’s why someone has to conscientiously paint beautiful flowers – like Giorgio Morandi embraced the beauty of simple forms in his still lifes during the Second World War. This is what the artist’s contribution to the fight between good and evil really is.”

The “Appeal to Beauty” exhibition will be opened through May 10.