Oleksandr Mylovzorov’s roads

The news about the personal Oleksandr Mylovzorov’s personal exhibit was not unexpected. Petrovych or Sashko as the artist is usually referred to by people of different generations is an active person and it is not so easy to trace his life roads. If I do not come for a month to the cozy and hospitable Gallery 36 in Adriivsky Uzviz, where Mylovzorov has been the art director for many years, I feel remote from life. It turns out that Petrovych is in the Czech Republic opening his personal exhibit. If I come to find out about my acquaintances from Prague several weeks later, it turns out that Sashko went to Germany for a plein-air. A month later Mylovzorov conquers Italy where his beautiful daughter, also an artists lives with his sweet-voiced grand-daughter Liza, a singer. Then he anchors in Kyiv for a short time to tell about his impressions. On a canvas, of course, or in graphic works, or sometimes in ceramics and sculpture. Then he presents a new exhibit, that almost always has an unexpected idea and implementation.

However, this time it was not just another exhibit. Oleksandr Mylovzorov gathered his friends and colleagues in such a significant and prestigious place as the Kyiv National Museum of Russian Art not accidentally. The thing is that the Honored Artists of Ukraine celebrated his 75th birthday this year. Many people remember about it as Petrovych managed to be born on April 22, on the same day as the “chief of all nations.” His birthday was celebrated on that day but as the artists are used to celebrating throughout the year, Oleksandr Mylovzorov decided to sum up his life with a large personal exhibit called “The Roads.”

In several museum halls he presented his paintings and graphic works that have been created over the last 10 years and have hardly been exhibited in Kyiv till now. This is “Torah, the days of creation and being,” an attempt to comprehend the origins of the mankind, to dig deep into the origin of the religion, to understand who we are, modern people on familiar terms with tricky technical gadgets, where we come from. Mylovzorov does not just fantasize, but thoroughly studies the Bible, the Old Testament. In his future book that is also called The Roads the artist confesses: “Reading the Bible is difficult for me. I take it as the truth and ask endless questions. For example, if Adam and Eve’s first descendants were Cain and Abel, Cain who killed Abel was our ancestor which means that all of us are the descendants of a murderer?! Thank God, Adam and Eve had another son named Sif who was not blood-stained. So, maybe we are his descendants. Obsessed with contradictions that almost physically tear him apart Oleksandr Mylovzorov splashes them on the canvas: the heroes of “Torah…” series are not faceless fairy characters, but living people with their passions, characters and flaws. These series of works is large and thorough and when you start thinking which quote from the Eternal Book the artist encrypted in this or that painting, you will want to “read” it thoroughly and attentively.

The series of graphic works “My Shevchenkiana” leaves an absolutely different, charming aftertaste. It belongs to him, not to anyone else. In Mylovzorov’s works Shevchenko is not a bronze genius with a recognizable face without emotions, but funny, playful variations on the theme of life and creative work of the prominent poet who did not despise simple sweets of life. His works are bright and light, as if they were created with a scratch of the pen and stylistically remind of the previous, my favorite series of Mylovzorov’s works called Bacchanalia. It was exhibited a long time ago, but I still remember cheerful groggy centaurs, goaded by Dionysus that wink at us from the wall saying: “Smile, ladies and gentlemen! Nothing human is alien to us!..”

Interrupting the specifics of paintings and graphic works, in some halls the artist placed sculptures made of non-traditional materials and domestic wastes. Many visitors must have spent a lot of time looking at them trying to guess the meaning and the topic of the exhibits. Professionals would probably say it is conceptual art. I will just define it as impromptus of a talented person able to use different techniques and materials, genres and directions and who wanted to give us another hint that: “The world is mysterious and beautiful! Do not look for the second bottom. Enjoy it and fantasize!”

The opening of the exhibit was attended by very many people: art historian Svitlana Chornoborodova, artist’s wife and friend, her colleagues Serhii Ternavsky, Natalia Kryvutsa, Oleksii Rohodchenko, film director Oleksii Kuzhelny, architect and art historian Yulik Lifshyts, artists Mykola Hrokh, Dmytro Korsun, Viktor Khomenko and others. They said warm and unhacked words as it is impossible to speak about Oleksandr Mylovzorov – Petrovych or Sashko – in a different manner. He does not like it and does not understand. Because he is not a jubilee hero but a living person. He is a funny epicure, a hospitable host of the gallery always full of people, a tireless traveler, an avid polemicist, a resourceful cook, and a fan of the Russian sauna who decided that his 75th anniversary is a good reason to gather his friends. So, The Roads are not an epitome of his creative work but a rest on the roadside. I will not be surprised if I drop into the Gallery 36 tomorrow and will find out that Petrovych is somewhere above the Arctic Circle or in Argentina.

In the nearest issues of The Day you will find the interview with the hero of the jubilee, the Honored artist of Ukraine Oleksandr Mylovzorov.