What is happiness?
“The Boat of Genesis,” an exhibit by sculptor Valerii Pyrohov, launched at the Triptych ART Gallery
The work of Valerii Pyrohov (Kharkiv) is well known to anyone who has at least some interest in art. He is a regular participant of all big sculpture exhibits on the national level and in the capital, and even more than that. However, this personal exhibit in Kyiv turns out to be his first one. I was genuinely surprised to hear that. How could this happen, indeed, that until the Triptych ART Gallery this living classic seemed to have remained invisible to other Kyiv-based art institutions?
Pyrohov and his works have long been perceived as the capital’s brand. One of the artist’s best-known works (which is also on display at the gallery) is called Optimist and Pessimist. A wingless life-lover soars as if gravity does not exist, pushing himself off on the sour skeptic with a heel.
The sculptor leaves an impression of an adult, graying, smiling child with a somewhat surprised look in the eye. At the opening of the exhibit this clumsy, lanky, shy, emotional, and very well-bred man in his best suit was telling me the stories of his works as if it were fairy-tales executed in various techniques, from cast bronze to gypsum to wood. Yes, indeed, each of Pyrohov’s creations has its own story. One could even say that his sculptures are still literature. His plots suggest Saint-Exupery, philosophical parables and fairy-tales with a hue of sadness. And, just like Saint-Exupery, a pilot and dreamer, most of Pyrohov’s characters can fly, too, laughing with joy. You think you can hear the laughter if you really concentrate.
The eponymous masterpiece of the artist’s first personal exhibit in the capital, The Boat of Genesis, is an entire novel of human happiness. The protagonists are a newly-wed couple. It tells a story of life which is not a simple thing. Yet the sculptor convinces you that life is not sad or scary, on the contrary, it is a fascinating common adventurous travel.
“I just made up the plot, I had a reason for that. My son had just gotten married. Man, was I happy! My son is also a sculptor,” adds the artist confidentially at the end of our conversation.
When Kyiv Fashion Park was just conceived and was to open on Peizazhna Aleia (the Landscape Alley), Pyrohov’s happy sculpture, Encounter, was supposed to be installed there as well: a couple of lovers in each other’s arms under one umbrella. Yet it did not happen for reasons beyond the organizers’ control. Eventually, Encounter did become one of Pyrohov’s most easily recognizable works. However, all of his characters seem to be easily recognizable, from loners running around a sunflower as if on a merry-go-round, to couples in love to funny gentlemen engaged in a conversation to ever-hurrying passers-by. The author’s unique style is not to be mistaken for someone other’s. Only one contemporary Ukrainian sculptor, one of a kind, can produce works filled to the brim with happiness.
He is not going to move to Kyiv. He said, “I am a Kharkiv man. And recently I received such an atelier, you cannot imagine it! It is a dream come true. So how can I leave it? Tomorrow, as soon as I and my wife come back to Kharkiv, I will go there directly, to work. This is happiness! And what does it matter whether you are happy in Kyiv or in Kharkiv?”