A new look at... “long johns character”

The exhibition “Depersonalization,” to be held at the Shcherbenko Art Center, will display a series of sculptures and pictures by a well-known contemporary art master. “Through the image of a ‘long johns man,’ the spectator can see the author’s strategy in exploring and reflecting on the influence of the recent historical past on today’s reality and the prospects of its repetition,” art critic Liubov BAHATSKA says. We can recall such of the Kyiv artist’s high-profile projects as clone statues of the “long johns man,” Viktor Sydorenko’s hallmarking character, which appeared on Malevycha Alley, Sichovykh Striltsiv Street, and Lesia Ukrainka Boulevard in 2008 in Kyiv, on Champs-Elysees, Paris, in 2009, and at Boryspil Airport in 2014.

“Depersonalization” organizers are saying the sculptures have found another dimension – on the author’s pictures. It will be recalled that the artist created a series of paintings with the easily-recognizable locations of London and Berlin, Paris and Venice, Athens and Kyiv. He seems to have borrowed these places from 19th-20th-century retro photographs and filled them with the clones, marking the problems of multiculturalism, open borders, and tolerance in the familiar outlines of European cities.

The artist’s character, conspicuous for his inner light, seems to be a friend among foes or a foe among friends. It is a “person without characteristics” – typical but particular, depersonalized but with a penetrating glance, an individual who searches for himself in the tabooed past, the globalized today, and the post-humanist future.

“My character ‘in long johns’ is identified as a post-Soviet man, owing to a particular detail of his clothes,” Viktor SYDORENKO says to The Day. “I am trying to show that this person is not terrible at all and, having the experience of transition from the totalitarian to democratic, can even be useful. And, perhaps owing to this experience, my character will be able to sink into a new dimension. And these long johns are gradually turning into the clothes of an Oriental sage who also wears white attire. This is what I want to express with my works.

“But everything began with the projects ‘Amnesia’ and then ‘The Cytochronisms’ which seemed to be destroying socialist realism artworks. I also remember how I found my ‘long johns character.’ I like old albums. So I found him accidentally in the archival photographs of the now distant 1940s. I began to develop this image. This character, which emerged from real life, still occurs in many of my projects.”

The “Depersonalization” art project will remain exhibited until May 6.

The Day’s FACT FILE

Viktor Sydorenko was born in 1953 in Taldy-Kurgan, Kazakhstan. He studied at the Kharkiv Applied Arts Institute (taught by Prof. B. Kosarev) in 1974-79. In 1985-88, he was a graduate student at the USSR Academy of Arts’ artistic studios (supervised by Prof. S. Grigoryev). Sydorenko has exhibited his works as part of solo and group projects not only in Ukraine, but also abroad, including at the 50th Venice Biennale; Black Square Gallery, Miami; Galerie Taiss, Galerie Albert Benamou, Paris; Lora D. Art Gallery, Chicago; Pendleton Art Center, Cincinnati; and the 5th International Art Festival, Magdeburg.