Dim Mykoly Gallery opens an almost serious exhibition
As children we were taught scores of instructive rhymes like this one, “This is a chair, you sit on it; this is a table, you eat at it...” It feels good to refute these truths one by one throughout your life, despite the fact that life keeps clinging to and rarely lets go of them.
One can imagine the delight artists felt at the proposal of the curator of the Dim Mykoly [Mykola’s House] Gallery to stage an unusual exhibition titled The Twelve Chairs. They have been given a free hand to perform various transmogrifications whose main goal is to snatch the object in question from the dull embrace of everyday routine and turn it into an object of art. Miraculous pageants with articles of furniture turned into useless but colorful artistic objects have repeatedly been staged in Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, and elsewhere. Although it is not the first time a similar exhibition has opened in Ukraine, its freshness is due to the fact that artists decided to dedicate it to April Fool’s Day.
On the exhibition opening day timed to coincide with the day of humor, the artists decided to summon up the spirits of Ilf and Petrov who obviously accepted the invitation, charging the atmosphere of the gallery with particles of genial creative energy. As a result, the number of chairs far exceeded twelve, and their variety must have dazzled even the classics. Sitting on some chairs is not so much forbidden as impossible. At the center of a small bench-like stool, sculptor I. Semeniuk “grew” a colorful tree. The dark stool by Taras Demyanenko is dominated by an elegant glowing hand holding a golden egg. The theme of incarnating furniture is continued by the installation of M. Tytova and K. Synytsky in which legs of a stool are replaced with life-size gypsum arms and legs. Baroque-style chairs by O. Kanarovska are richly adorned with various decorations and fabrics. The real heavy metal of the exhibition — cumbersome metal chairs hauled into the showroom — was the result of the creative quest of Yuliya Lazarevska.
In general, by working with chairs and attempting to shake them out of their platitude, the artists took the subject to extremes. Many wanted to try themselves in unusual roles. The serious artists wanted to let their sense of humor show. Take, for example, the grinning chair by T. Andrushchenko. Painters had a go at graphics, as in the black-and-white chair of S. Hordiyets, motley linear creations of N. Rubanova, N. Pikush, L. Teslenko-Ponomarenko, L. Yahodkina, et al.
Some have used natural materials, plants, roots, and such, while others have gone for antiques. The age and mastery of the authors also varies greatly. The patterns of famous painters are their signatures behind which one can see the inimitability of their style. A museum-like quality radiates from the exquisite chair by I. Kyrychenko, whose seat is covered with silky fabric and subtly painted to reflect the artist’s favorite theme of the relationship between man and woman. A. Prakhova left her bold artistic hand and a new infatuation with a golden gamma on her chair. M. Kadan used the folding seatback to create his self-portrait.
But what about the treasure that the heroes of the Twelve Chairs were obsessed with? It is a touchstone for the artist’s soul. The exhibition organizer singled out the installation made of obsolete banknotes so as to give those attending the exhibition food for thought. Since the money eventually loses its value, is it worth looking for it deep (a reference to the treasure hidden deep in the seat of one of the twelve chairs in Ilf and Petrov’s Twelve Chairs — Ed.) or should preference be given to the value that is found on the surface, which some might call artistic?
