Top cultural events
FILM PREMIERE: MY JOY
The full-length live-action debut of the renowned documentary director Serhii Loznytsia, My Joy (Ukraine-Germany-the Netherlands) has collected too many awards to enumerate over this passing year. Thus, I will only remind about the two most important ones. My Joy has become the first film in the history of Ukrainian cinematography to take part in the full-length film competition of the Cannes Film Festival. The absence of awards from a forum of such a high level is no sign of lack of recognition. The very fact of being handpicked to participate in the main contest at Cannes, from among hundreds of other contestants from all over the world, is a prize in itself, just as being nominated for an Oscar is an award in itself. There was also the shower of positive reviews in the most influential Western editions and the purchase of distribution rights in more than 20 countries, from France to the US.
Likewise, My Joy has become the first Ukrainian full-length film to have won the main award in the history of Molodist (Kyiv) as an international festival. Loznytsia, a successful documentary director, now residing in Germany, has made an epic, a parable of Russia’s age-long misfortunes, and filmed it all in Ukraine where he grew up and lived for 27 years, and where he began to work as a filmmaker.
Such a film would have been impossible in Russia not only due to the “Russophobia,” which a considerable proportion of the Russian intellectual community saw in it (wrongly so), but also because through the film Loznytsia appears as a baroque artist in his perception of the world. The entire structure of the film, with its repetitions and parallel motifs and a hero who goes through inhuman sufferings to eventually turn into a fully symbolic figure — the incarnation of that land’s fate — resembles baroque tragedies. Loznytsia’s grim tale carves deep into one’s conscience. Blaming no one, in the final analysis, My Joy merely reminds us of the degree of distortion of the world we are living in.
FILM EVENT: MOLODIST
Over the last two decades, the Molodist festival of Kyiv has been gradually growing from a local students competition into a true international film forum. The process was complicated and went by fits and starts. In the long run, the unfailing chairman of the festival (and now, its director general) Andrii Khalpakhchi has succeeded in fulfilling his cherished ambition. The first thing that struck the eye this year was the list of honorary guests. Kyiv hosted Gerard Depardieu, Fanny Ardant, Sophie Marceau, Christopher Lambert (all French), Vladimir Menshov, Liudmila Gurchenko, Aleksei Guskov, Karen Shakhnazarof (all Russian), and Lucas Moodysson (Sweden). The main festival jury was headed by the French director Marc Caro, co-author to the cult movies Delicatessen and City of Lost Children.
Aside from the celebrities, Molodist also attracted dozens of young filmmakers from many countries around the world. And the second important peculiarity (which concerns not so much the festival itself as the situation of the domestic film industry in general): Ukrainian films took part in all nominations. The students’ films included: Pereshkoda (The Hurdle), directed by Maksym Buinytsky); Ii Mistse Porozhnie (Her Seat Is Empty), by Bohdan Smyrnov, and the professional short films — Tupik (The Deadlock) by Ivan Timshyn, Ostannii Lyst (The Last Letter) by Yurii Kovaliov, and Trusy (Underpants) by Zhanna Dovhych. As far as full length films go, our country was represented by Loznytsia’s My Joy, which predictably won the first place.
INNOVATION: “BEUYS. PAIK. VOSTELL. THE ART OF ACTION AND VIDEO ART OF THE 1960S-1970S”
This exhibit, dedicated to one of the most influential artistic trends of the 20th century, the movement Fluxus, was held at the National Art Museum of Ukraine. The public was able to see the classic works by the famous German artists of the 1960s-1970s, pioneers of video art Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell, as well as video documentaries of the performances by Joseph Beuys, the leader of European Actionism.
Each one of these names is a true legend. All of them were, in the 1960s-1970s, active participants in the radical art movement Fluxus, which encouraged many experimenters from all over the world to introduce the art of action into conventional practices: performances, happenings, and also such a complicated genre as installation.
Among the rest, this exhibit is also important as a confirmation of the new artistic technologies and styles being, at last, taken seriously by the academic and museum environment, so video and media art, installation, and performance have eventually come to stop being something exotic even among the most conservative part of our cultural community.
RELOAD: ART ARSENAL
With the arrival of new management, Art Arsenal has gained a second wind as a powerful exhibition site. Its director Natalia Zabolotna has introduced exposition formats from her previous job: in the fall, quite a numerous delegation of renowned artists and critics came to take part in the modern art festival Art-Kyiv Contemporary; in December, the Great Antiques Salon enjoyed an equal success; the Great Sculpture Salon is scheduled for March, 2011; the festival FINE ART Ukraine is to take place in April, as are actions within the framework of Ukrainian Fashion Week. Virtually all of this took place in the Ukrainian Home, whose director over the last two years was Zabolotna. At any rate, it is relieving to see that Art Arsenal is picking up pace as an exhibition center, occupying one of the leading positions on the capital’s cultural map.
DUBAI: PINCHUKARTCENTRE
This year the PinchukArtCentre has strengthened its reputation as a sort of artistic Dubai. Two projects which looked like a kaleidoscope of world-famous names were implemented: the exhibit “Sexuality and Transcendence,” and the contest for an international Future Generation Art Prize. While the exhibit brought together famous Western artists, the contest was in charge of top Kulturtraegers. The laureate was determined by a honorary international board made up by renowned art patrons and artists Daniel Birnbaum (Sweden, chairman of the jury), Okwui Enwezor (Nigeria), Yuko Hasegawa (Japan), Ivo Mesquita (Brazil), Eckhard Schneider (Germany), Robert Storr (US), and Ai Weiwei (China).
The patrons of the prize, the artists Andreas Gursky, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, and Takashi Murakami made a point of gathering in Kyiv, and thus eventually got together for the first time on one stage, to congratulate the winners. Founded by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in December, 2009, the Future Generation Art Prize is awarded every two years. The patrons’ aim is to discover new names in the world of art and offer long-term support to the next generation of artists, regardless of the place of their birth and residence, and also to promote the new works by young artists on a large scale.
The main prize was awarded to Cinthia Marcelle, a Brazilian painter who makes films, installations, and also does photography. Marcelle received 60,000 dollars in cash and a 40,000-dollar grant for the creation of new works of art.
TENDENCY: GALLERY AND EXHIBIT BOOM
This year, the gallery business has become one of the most expressive, as they say now, “trends.” New powerful centers are opening not only in Kyiv (M17, Greta), but also in oblast cities: Izoliatsia in Donetsk, and Ya-Halereia in Dnipropetrovsk, which complements the already active and very interesting art club Kvartyra (Appartment). Several simultaneous exhibit is nothing out of the ordinary in Kyiv now. In a sense, demand even exceeds supply: there is a lack of new names and fresh talents to fill this rapidly growing space.
OUTRAGE: THREAT TO THE MUSEUMS OF THE KYIV-PECHERSK LAVRA
We will merely adduce here an appeal published at the end of last week:
“The Yanukovych-Azarov government is throwing Ukrainian museums out of the Lavra. If we don’t stop it, we will lose forever:
- the Museum of Historical Treasures of Ukraine, with its famous Scythian Pectoral;
- the Museum of Decorative Art, with unique collections of works by Kateryna Bilokur, Maria Prymachenko, and collections of Ukrainian pysankas (painted Easter eggs) and embroidery;
- the Museum of Books and Printing, with the history of our book, and ancient printed books by Petro Mohyla, Yosyp Tryzna, and Lazar Baranovych;
- the Museum of Theater, Music, and Film Art founded by Les Kurbas, with exhibits presented by Maria Zankovetska, Amvrosii Buchma, and the Starytsky family;
- the Museum of Miniatures, with its amazing exhibits.
“All these museums can become homeless in the nearest future.
“The staff received orders to pack and get out. Renowned scholars are dismissed or transferred to work as caretakers. Unique collections will be plundered by well-known ‘museum thieves’ in the government, or at best they will decay somewhere in storerooms.
“The government is ruining the Kyiv Lavra — a monument of world culture which is in the UNESCO world heritage list.
“Only we, the citizens of Ukraine, on behalf of whom these crimes are being committed, can stop these savages.”
