Hnylytsky without majestic isolation
The National Art Museum of Ukraine launches an exhibit of the artist’s portraits and self-portraits
Oleksandr Hnylytsky always belonged to the top five artists of the Ukrainian “new wave,” being among the founders and participants of key Ukrainian artistic currents. He was among the first to experiment with video art, but returned to painting in the 2000s after an experimental period in the 1990s when he created installations and videos. His inner world was as much interesting as his works are.
To reproduce the intimacy of the artist’s creative work, the exhibition’s organizers have collected his portraits and self-portraits that he painted throughout his life. Self-portrait in the Mirror and Self-portrait as Mozart are especially impressing; they are typical for that authentic psychedelic romanticism that distinguished Hnylytsky among his contemporaries in the art.
Interestingly, the organizers seek to help visitors delve into the inner world of the artist and his unique style rather than to promote his paintings. The project’s curator Oksana Barshynova told The Day the exhibition’s emphasis is skewed indeed toward the personality of the artist: “First of all, we would like to show Hnylytsky as his contemporaries remember him. It is the best option for the first museum exhibition, as it undermines that unnecessary majestic isolation which often colors our attitudes to famous artists. Moreover, his and his colleagues’ works provide an excellent opportunity to introduce the artist through, so to say, portraits and self-portraits. This scheme allows us to show works from all periods of his creative activity, from early year of 1979 to the last years of his life, and represent genre and medium diversity which was so characteristic for Hnylytsky as an artist.”
Hnylytsky was a genuine revolutionary within the Ukrainian artistic community, launching new genres such as installation and video art in the 1990s. Art critics consider his works as examples of actual art, which is, unfortunately, relatively unpopular in this country, though some positive trends can still be discerned: “From my museum work experience, I can say that exhibitions of actual art are indeed the most popular ones. I believe it has much to do with the growing openness of the world. People travel, see the art on the Internet, and it becomes clear to them that the world is developing very fast and the art can not help but change, too, even compared to its more recent forms. They also start to understand that the art is in eternal movement, and that it is actual art, like it or not, that reflects the present age and ourselves,” Barshynova said.
It should be said that in addition to Hnylytsky’s legacy, the exhibition will include works by painters who portrayed him (Tsagolov, Chichkan, Sai, Roitburd, Hnylytska, etc.) and a series of photos and videos covering period from the 1980s till 2009, including, in particular, photos by Riabchenko, Druhanov, Shevchuk and Protsenko. The works of Hnylytsky’s friends and colleagues show him as a character and subject of performances, staged photos, video art, installations and creative works of other genres, confirming his status as a member of the artistic circle that had formed an important stage in the development of Ukrainian art in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
