On joy, radiance, and images of evil

This exposition, organized by the Kyiv branch of the National League of Ukrainian Artists (section of decorative and applied art) is being held at the Central House of the Artist. The words “art of fire” in the title bear a certain symbol. For studio pottery, as well as glass and metal items, are made in a furnace at a high temperature (up    to 1,400 degrees Celsius!): artworks are literally born in fire, as do their authors – masters of decorative art, who, together with all Ukrainians, are being “tempered” in the fire of a war our hostile neighbor has unleashed against our freedom-loving people.

This high-profile exhibit, which includes over 250 works by about 100 authors, is the result of longtime, painstaking, but still fruitful, efforts of a team of curators – League of Ukrainian Artists members Volodymyr Balyberdyn (initiator and organizer of the “Metal” section), Zoia Chehusova (concept author and coordinating curator of the exhibit), Mark Halenko (“Ceramics” section curator), Stas Kadochnikov (“Glass” section curator), the Artist League’s Directory of Art Exhibits with Ihor Voloshchuk at the head, many very talented artists of the older and middle-age generations, and young art students from various cities of Ukraine, such as Kyiv, Lviv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Khmelnytsky, Lutsk, Uzhhorod, Ternopil, Chernivtsi, and even Sloviansk, Donetsk, and Simferopol.

The exposition, which harmonically combines a large number of 3D spatial compositions, decorative pictures and vessels, art objects made in the various techniques of modeling and pottery, as well as from hand-made glass, stained glass, forged metal, and jewelry, quite differs from other decorative and applied art exhibitions held by the League of Artists. Above all, it was prepared as part of a certain art concept which determined its motto “Emancipation, Reform, Innovation” and the criteria of approach to the displayed works – “figurative plastic innovation and artistic quality of hand-made works,” from the angle of which the Artistic Board selected artworks.

The concept also prompted the exhibit’s title. The term “art of fire” (from the French “groupe des arts du feu”) was coined in France at the turn of the 20th century, in the period of art nouveau (1886-1914) – the triumph of decorative art in Western and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine. It is the art nouveau style that spelled out the triad “emancipation, reform, innovation” which is being expressed in the works of today’s applied art masters of Ukraine at a new turn of art history, the turn of the 21st century. Each of these masters is trying to achieve – in their own individual style – the goal set a long time ago by the “giants” of art nouveau: to be constantly immersed in the endless multitude of forms and colors embodied in inimitable images in ceramics, glass, and metal.

Now, as before, artists are inclined to carry out fresh figurative, plastic, and technical experiments. They are not afraid to adopt new non-trivial forms and motifs which run ahead of the contemporaries’ vision. Although the early 21st-century art is not much associated with the art nouveau style, we can also see today the art rarities in which the boundary lines between a sculpture and a utilitarian object, plastique and applied art, have been erased, which you can make sure if you visit and undoubtedly be fascinated with this uncommon exhibit.

By its very nature, decorative art is a priori the art of positive emotions, for “images of evil” are impossible and inadmissible on its “territory.” Therefore, the exposition brings joy and radiance to audiences, which I think is extremely important now to our compatriots who have long been in constant psychological tension.

Good Lord, I dream so much that only the fire of art may burn in Ukraine! I wish so much to live to see this!

The exhibit will last until February 8.

Zoia Chehusova is an Honored Art Worker of Ukraine