Oleksandr DUBOVYK: I wish my country all the best

A wonderful colorist who easily mixes not only paints, but genres as well. He is a philosopher with a subtle and biting sense of humor — this is what Dubovyk is like in his works and life. His works are preserved in museums in Ukraine, Russia, the US, and Europe, and many private collections around the world. The artist says that he does not especially care about exhibits, he paints a work and that’s it. His wife Iryna is his manager, comrade-in-arms, and beloved woman. They feel like they have been together for many centuries, accumulating wisdom and preserving the ardor of youth.

When asked about the exhibits that are going to take place in the offing, Iryna Dubovyk said: “There will be Lviv in June, and Germany in August. At the launch of the exhibit our friend Stuedemann will deliver a speech, he is simply a genius (Dietmar Stuedemann used to be Germany’s Ambassador to Ukraine). People ask me in Germany, where I have found such an art expert. And I reply: he is not an art expert, he is a career diplomat. Later we will have an anniversary exhibit at the Union of Artists, after which we will go to Chernivtsi. What comes next remains to be seen.”

You’re a trendy, sought-after artist of standing reputation, whereas once you used to be a very bright representative of the underground, famous in narrow circles.

“Famous in narrow circles is a phrase from that time.”

Could you ever imagine that everything would change?

“I could not foresee that there would be the perestroika and all these changes. If not for them, there would have been nothing to talk about. I would die, I would have been trampled – that’s all. The most important thing is that Ukraine has acquired independence, because at the time Moscow was the center, a megalopolis, a wall. The rest of the cities, republics, even Kyiv, the capital, the whole of Russia, even St. Petersburg, could not break through this wall and find a way out to the world. Everything would accumulate there, all decisions were made there, up to a micron. So it was impossible to break through this barrier. And when Ukraine became more or less free, we went to the world. Not only me, many other artists did so, too. Let me tell you a couple of words about the past. I graduated from school, an art institute, and an academy. Ours was the first, an all-union intake in Kyiv’s academy. My diploma work was dedicated to Julius Fucik. I was a realist. My career was flourishing. The diploma work was presented at a youth festival, won some awards, and was printed in the magazine Sovietsky Soyuz (The Soviet Union), which was more than enough. That was such a bright road. I was immediately on the board, I hit all records – in a year I became member of the Union of Artists. At some point in the mid-1960s I was fed up with information. Don’t laugh, I read a lot. We have the Library of Foreign Literature, where I got a huge layer of information. If I only wished, the information was fully accessible, not everyone can obtain it nowadays. There were wonderful magazines, about Japan, Switzerland, England — all the countries of the world. So I was knowledgeable and I tried to improve socialist realism. At the time I was thinking like a Soviet man. Everything ended in collapse. I was no longer accepted or perceived, I left the board on my own will, and gradually disappeared from all these councils, all of them. Since the people did not need me, I decided that I did not need them either. I said to myself that I was free to do whatever I wanted. I had to earn my living, so I took up monumental works. My wife, Ira, and I made mosaics. This is ridiculous, but whereas I could not exhibit my works, I executed on huge walls almost the same things I created on the canvases in my studio. This prevented me from giving in. I did not have to adjust, to perform any of these ‘Lenin’ orders. Profession-wise it was an elementary thing for me to paint a picture, even with a hundred figures, because I had good grounding. But the very fact was inadmissible for me. The orders came to an end. And I executed the monumental works in Russia, and a whole range of them in Kyiv, even abroad – I painted a chapelle (chapel) in France, near Nice. Chapelles are pure Provencal tradition, they are small, of miniature seize. There are chapelles painted by Picasso, Cocteau, Matisse (a big one), Tobey, and Chagall. I have a nice company. And there is my chapelle too.”

Nice company indeed. You may call the method whatever you like, socialist realism, cubism, or constructivism, but I think that no great artist can fit into any isms. Where do you belong?

“The thing is that divisions into all kind of isms are conditional. This is merely a maneuver of art critics, because philosophy is an individual vision of the world, and there is no universal system. Jose Ortega said an interesting thing, that from all possible philosophies Immanuel Kant chose criticism because it corresponded to his essence. I am referred to as a postmodernist. I am not postmodern, on the contrary, I am most of all interested in coming back to the system. Roland Barthes totally denied the system, he was afraid of his own system and called any system, even his own one, totalitarian, because it is always meant to impose something. This is a classical postmodern move. I want to think that any ideas can exist only in some social context, for example the European social context. We do not understand and will never understand any other cultures, no matter how much we try. So there is no point in trying to create anything universal. We can create a system based on European culture. What kind of culture? Aesthetic, ethical, or philosophical. These summands may help us unite; we still have to go back to the basics, as too much has already been destroyed.”

To what extent are our, national Ukrainian, things able to fit into European culture? Will we preserve our authenticity or dissolve?

“I think that we fully belong to the European branch, because there are other poles too. We have Islam, Buddhism, Zen-Buddhism; there is also Japan, which has an absolutely different attitude to the world, different social relationships and what not. Compared to them, everything is European, though we have some disparities, they are not essential: we are Christians, this is the main unifying element. It does not matter whether you’re a Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox Christian. We have a Christian worldview. I am not religious, but like it or not, our entire culture has been built on Christianity through generations. This is a very broad European bloc, and Ukraine fits fully into it.”

Times change, as do traditions and the system of social ties. How can one preserve oneself from this influence, which is not always positive?

“Blok said: ‘The worse the life, the better the creative work.’ Actually, this is true. An artist should have some protective barriers, we should treat ourselves ironically. I don’t think that I’m bringing some big truth, or message, with no other variants remaining, I simply think about other things. So, if you have no protective barriers, they will trample you under foot. These barriers do not depend on the state, the government, on what people say or yell at the meetings, this is inner world which should be protected. I am doing exactly this kind of thing.”

In your opinion, is the level of everything that is going on in today’s art growing or vice versa?

“I think that Ukraine has a whole range of wonderful artists of a high level. But the thing is that the artists are burdened by the state, which is not respected anywhere. We are perceived in the world like something second-rate, and this is not simply a minus. The government does not care about culture. Look at the Chinese: all the conservatoires and best universities of the world are full of Chinese; they invest colossal money into culture. Not oil or metal. And the funding comes from the government, not private persons. They are thinking now about what becomes of the young people in 40 or 50 years. We have no grants, no communication, we cannot buy any magazines. It is only online that we can find information, like: I don’t need this, I can see this. What about the rest? As for real art, I understand what is going on there, what is the background and philosophy of it, I know and like it. But I’m getting tired of it: it’s some worldwide socialistic realism, and I’m fed up with it, because the same things are everywhere. It’s some kind of entropy. There are no new ideas, everything is turning into some commercial compote. In the artistic sense, which is most important for me, this intellectual art does not have a background, a twilight zone, as I call it. There is no vertical. And the twilight zone is an obscure zone, where the artist’s interest is shaped — his interest in art, where he produces the impression of touching mystery. Unfortunately, now the stream of negative is erupting.”

Nowadays many people miss the times when there were some bans, as they think that they stimulated art.

“Art was not developing then. That is why the underground emerged. It was dangerous to get involved with it. This is not a development. This is an anomaly. Some guy would come to us (I knew his name and rank, he was threatening Ira, not me), drew prison bars and said what awaited me. Of course, Ira got scared. Was that normal? Was that development? In Moscow it was not scary, but here, it was terrifying.”

From the point of view of an artist, what is patriotism?

“I wish my country all the best. I don’t understand the word ‘nationalists.’ There can be no nationalists in an independent state. There are patriots who wish their country all the best; they say directly that the interests of their own country are a priority. This is a normal thing. The rest is an aftereffect of the Soviet Union, the imperial perspective. We have no nationalists and we can’t have any in principle. We have patriots. In this sense I am a patriot too. I want Ukraine to prosper.”