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A large-scale international exhibit is going to be held at Mystetsky Arsenal from May to July 2012. Is it going to be pure art or “serious business”? The Day has been writing about it, and will continue doing so. There is a hope that first Kyiv biannual exhibit (Arsenale 2012) is going to range artistic Kyiv and Ukraine in general with Venice, Cologne, New York, Berlin, and Paris. We are grateful to Natalia Zabolotna and her team for the very idea of Arsenale 2012, as well as for inviting David Elliott (Great Britain), experienced and authoritative expert in the field of modern world art, to be the main supervisor of the event. Ukraine is honored by his consent to take this position. Arsenale 2012 is strategically regulated by Zabolotna herself, she is the commissioner of the future art event.

Elliott shares his opinions and offers to “look at art and life independently, without interference of media or ideology.” This is quite a fascinating and attractive task, but time will show if it is possible to fulfil it. The supervisor intends to show a kind of universal humanism within this exhibit. This is what Ukrainian post-modernism, and especially “trendy art” lacked for a long time. At the same time, you can hear faint notes of uncertainty in the interview with the head supervisor – he does not conceal the fact that he feels quite a neophyte on Ukrainian art scene and relies fully on the advice of Oleksandr Soloviov (Kyiv) and a guest from Moscow, Ekaterina Degot. But another question comes up here: why is the guest from Russia, author of monograph Russian Art of the 20th Century going to give council to the supervisor? Why is it not Halyna Skliarenko or Orest Holubets, not Oleh Sydor-Hibelynda or Lesia Avramenko? There are a lot of art critics in Ukraine (in Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa) who are experts in both Ukrainian and world art.

Cooperation with Degot would seem reasonable if she was the coordinator of Russian part of the exhibit. However, she was entrusted with managing the whole discussion and theoretical unit of the biennale.

Modern Art Research Institute directed by Viktor Sydorenko represents a powerful group of art critics, culture experts, aestheticians, who have been actively working for 10 years now. Theoretical and practical (supervising) product of the institute impresses with the fundamental research of post-modernism, actual and radical trends, live art practice. Logically, it should be the Ukrainian experts in the area of visual culture who should create and implement theoretical and discussion unit of Arsenale 2012. The first Ukrainian biannual exhibit could be a starting ground for promoting Ukrainian art criticism into the international intellectual scene.

The ranking list of “prominent cultural workers of Ukraine” that was published in Art-Ukraine, looks like it was compiled by amateurs. It does not include any of the current art experts from Modern Art Research Institute. Another surprise: Oleksii Radynsky, who was just a postgraduate and did not manage to defend the thesis, was appointed to be Degot’s partner.

A number of serious questions is addressed not to Elliott, since he is just getting acquainted with Ukrainian situation, but to his advisor, Soloviov.

Elliott intends to get to know artistic Ukraine, and sense the situation during March and April. In the beginning, he is going to rely on his personal contacts with Ilia Kabakov and Borys Mykhailov. “We have known each other for many years,” Elliott approved of their exhibits as of representatives of Ukraine. This is not a completely independent choice, but it can probably be explained by Soloviov’s consultations.

Soloviov’s own choice will probably be made using similar principles. He is the supervisor of the Special Project, but frankly speaking, he is the shadow ideologist of the whole biennale. One can look through Soloviov’s supervisor projects during the past 20 years and see the stereotypical names of radical authors who keep discussing the topics of “physiological bottom,” “phallo- and faecescentrism.” Along come the scenes of gay clubs, children pornography, underage girls, and of course, defecation and coitus in the projects by Vasyl Tsaholov. And since Soloviov “knows these people and their art for many years,” here comes another time we will face the reanimated negative aggression at Arsenale 2012.

This special “modus of refined cynicism” (term was created by Sydor-Hibelynda) was practised before by Soloviov in cooperation with Marta Kuzma and at a private establishment, PinchukArtCentre. Now it is practised at the national museum, Mystetsky Arsenal. In this context, cooperation with Degot, who considers the topic of trash to be the most actual one, makes perfect sense. After choosing “Art after Apocalypse” to be the topic of discussion club, Degot has left no hopes for the “category of beautiful” survival.

Shocking public works only once. Exploiting stamps might do a bad favor to the authors of projects as well as to their head supervisor. Neglecting such nationwide art critics as Bosenko, Sydorenko, Vysheslavsky, Chepelyk, Sakharuk, and their colleagues mentioned above, makes Soloviov’s position look very much like the anti-Ukrainian actions and a massive campaign against the Ukrainian language, history, and culture conducted by Tabachnyk.

We truly can learn a lot from Russian intellectuals. But preparation for Arsenale 2012 deserves cooperation with such art experts as Yakimovich, German, Andreeva. Besides trash, they also see the complex dialectics of the 21st century art.

So, Arsenale 2012 set sail. And hopefully, it will be guided by Elliott’s words: “The matter of responsibility is something that concerns art in general.”