One exhibition shows the works of avant-garde artists and mental patients

An exhibition called Variations of Genius, held at the Art Center on Kostelna Street, was based on the long-tested idea of bringing the works of the mentally ill and so-called normal artists together. This was by no means the first exhibition of its kind in Kyiv. With this in view, the organizers tried to impart as much to remember and as much originality as possible. Visitors were given Soviet period badges and stamps as passes. The exhibition proper was preceded by the performance of two dancers wearing white doctors’ smocks and the sonic exercises of musicians perched on a makeshift ladder. One of the most eye-catching exhibits was an “instrument for measuring genius,” which, at closer examination, turned out to be a special medical device for skull trepanation.

The art itself was divided, as we said earlier, into two categories. The first hall was filled with works by Kyiv avant-garde artists who rationally calculate their success, while numerous canvases of mental patients hung in the second one. What we saw left us ambivalent. On the one hand, there was clear evidence of somewhat awkward pretensions of the allegedly normal to the out of the ordinary thinking and creative lack of inhibitions. On the other hand, the mental patients’ works were appealing with their openly emotional character, brilliant execution, somewhat childish religiosity (most pictures dealt with biblical subjects), and on the whole very transparent and naive perception of the world and their own fantasies.

It is difficult to say if anybody won here. What is beyond doubt is that as long as art is tormented by its own impotence, the audiences at whom this art is aimed will remain indifferent to both art and much else, while any variations on the subject of genius and mental derangement will appear as officious and not terribly effective functions.