Friday «Tyzhden’» was launched with the opening of the exhibition of the Maitre of contemporary Ukrainian art Andriy Sahaydakovskyj & his paintings «Happy Life» «The exhibition has an aptly name – says the curator of the « Ya Gallery » Pavlo Gudimov /it was he who has brought the exhibition to L’viv/ This time the exhibition is expanded, it contains the works of the previous exhibition «Quote», as well as the older works of 2009. Sahaydakovskyj’s works are very acute and very frank. With their help he simply tells the story of his life, he expresses some sentiments or anger ».
Next presented was the installation created by Olexiy Konoshenko - the boats on the side of Svoboda Avenue. This installation reminds the viewers about Poltva river that is flowing just under the Opera House /to the right of it/. And what is the more interesting - the direction of transport movement here coincides with the direction of Poltva flow. Times are changing as well as transport means, but the vectors remain the same.
Then the mobile units of the audience moved to the Gallery “Dzyga” to participate in the opening of the exhibition of paintings of one of the most talented young artists Artem Volokitin . His realistic paintings almost approach naturalism & as it is claimed in the exhibition’s concept they /paintings/ are aimed to return the lost in culture masculinity. But the artist himself clarified it as follows: «We talk here not so much about the loss of masculinity but rather about the vagueness of masculine image. I meditated where & what was the place of a man / male/ in the society and I created the image , the result of my tghoughts». The artist himself says that he derives the inspiration with his family and confesses that his family is strongly patriarchal
Anatoliy Belov presented his street-art project directed against the statehood moralism including the prohibition of certain books and the odiously Ukrainian law banning porn. The city was decorated with the posters depicting a naked man who photographed himself in the mirror with the inscription «My Porn - My Right» /written in mirror/. «It's like it happens in police stations where it’s possible to watch a person through translucent mirror - says the artist. – The audience acts as spies keeking into other people's private lives, into the process of studying one’s own body and one’s own sexuality ».
The first day of «Tyzhden’» also presented the new issue of the oldest Ukrainian art-magazine «Kitets’-Kintsem». It was published /theme «The Voice of Artist», editors Anatoliy Zvizhynskyj & Rostyslav Koterlin/ in cooperation with Art Association «Dzyga» & it includes over thirty exclusive interviews with significant artists, gallery owners, curators of Ukraine, Poland and Russia /Bazhaj, Kaufman, Poderev'jans'kyj, «Sinije Nosy», Makov, Roytburd, Savadov etc... /
The area around the Bernardino cathedral in the evening was captured by the installations. Kyiv artists Ilona Silvashi and Jaroslav Prysiazhnyuk opened the installation «Gemination of Reality». «There are numerous options for cooperation between an artist & nature - comments Vlodko Kaufman. - This installation – it’s a game that makes the viewer think of what is surrounding him. The given project – it’s an attempt to comprehend the everyday present environment ».
The last but one opened was the light installation «SPEED SHIFT» created by the world famed Austrian artist Erwin Redl. The installation consists of two strips of white LEDs and a simple tone. It is created taking into consideration the specific work of human brains and it provokes some slight changes of the time perception . Each LED strip shows the visualization of sound wave pulsing in time with sound. The speed of each strip varies with time, phases are the same or they differ, but the average speed of the two strips remains the same.
The first “Tyzhden’” day came to its end accompanied by the video project of L’viv artists Olexiy Khoroshko & Sergiy Petlyuk / formation «Coma»/. The video was shown on the defensive wall of the Bernardino monastery & it consisted of some simple icons /mainly road signs and their variations on a theme/ accompanied by a simple but psychedelic sound. The idea to present the narrative in icons isn’t new, but «Coma» has managed to demonstrate how emotional & even drmatic these icons can be.
Saturday
The second day of the “Tyzhden’” went on with the opening of contemporary art exhibitions /they will be demonstrated throughout the Festival/ and proposed the audience a few performances.
The project «MediaDepo» presented by Bogdan Shumylovych demonstrated the compilation of art-videos from the known European festivals «Interfilm», «ARS Electronica», «Transmediale», «Impakt», «Videomedeya», «Videolog», «WRO» .... Finally MediaDepo will offer the specially composed for L’viv selection of Jonas Mekas’ and George Makunas’ works. The selection was shown twice a day: firstly at the Center for Urban History «as it was», the second time - in the evening at the “Jam Factory” & that time with the comments and Ukrainian dubbing made by Shumylovych.
The Gallery «Primus» opened the exhibition of Igor Yanovych «Context» - some unique in its kind. The abstract works were represented at the exhibition twice: the original canvases and the photos of them / where the pictures were placed in an unusual but very appropriate environment /eg: the godforsaken, abandoned school basin in Chernobil’ zone & other such like “dead” objects/.
The Museum of Ideas proposed simultaneously three installations. Rostyslav Koterlin “RANA” – anti-utopian installation consisting of two paintings and the stroboscope. It claims to articulate a global question: «What is hidden in the heavens and in the dark waters of the global human selfishness?» One of the paintings depicts a frog, the other - the star that symbolizes respectively «waters» and «heavens» . Besides, the pictures were placed opposite each other but at the same level - a reference to the unity & confrontation between Sublime & Chthonic
Oleksa Furdiyaka & his «Electroswines» continued the anti-utopian theme: two steel pigs hidden behind the barbed wire with raised electricity brought the associations with the soviet gulags and at the same time, with the Orwell’s «Animal Farm». The audience was warned not to touch the installation - high voltage, reality in action.
The third installation «Trio» presented by Oles’ Dzyndra was the complete antithesis to the previous two. A thin glass tube lit from within & accompanied by the grand sound track with Bach’s «Passion of Joan» made an exclusively peaceful impression. Some people experienced the association with the religious view of human life /from the ashes go to ashes/, the other “saw” the giant brain of Thinking machine, but definitely the installation captured & provoked the desire to examine it more and more. Dzyndra himself was sitting next to his installation in the corner, he was evidently the third in the trio, along with music and the object.
Then «Tyzhden’» moved to the «Jam Factory» - some fantastic area, no doubt, a new L’viv art space in a godforsaken neo-gothic / eclectic / futuristic factory in one the oldest parts of the city.
Olena & Max Afanasyev and Olexander Yudin from Kherson city Center «Totem» presented a couple of installations. The first one - «I have been working all day and what then? ..» : three toy construction vehicles in the quarry, each of which is asking the mentioned above question in different languages. The installation is aimed to comprehend the value of labor in nowadays consumption society. The second installation - «Immersion» /photos of people in the bathes/ represented love as substance suitable for diving/immersion. A reservoir with a white powder in front of the pictures focused either on some elevated /almost opiate/ beyond-substantiality of love, or it hinted at its fragility & temporality. But the audience has invented its own way of treatment, leaving patterns and prints of the hands on the surface.
Tamara Gridyayeva presented the media – installation consisting of simple icons /arrows-pointers/ turning & moved & accompanied by the minimalist soundtrack.
Sergiy Petlyuk exposed some “soft” video-installation «Dreams of Europe» that gathered around it probably the most numerous audience. A small room was laid out with many sleeping bags. And the images of people were demonstrated on them. Those virtual people almost sleeping were conversing among themselves whispering the names of different European cities.
Ruslan Tremba’s installation «I’m not Afraid» - three iron sculptures and several prints that «show the passage through all stages from the birth & growth to consciousness, from donations & sacrifices to the reconciliation and finding a sense of being at peace with God». What is you should not be afraid of is explained in some poetical form by the author himself : «Do not be afraid to give ... life – the birth, beginning of existentia and perceived sacrifice. Do not be afraid to give ... life – the stage of a separate identity. Do not be afraid of ... yourself - reconciliation and the final stage in the cycle between birth and death ». It seems that Tremba himself is not afraid nor to think, nor to shock.
French artist Patrick Bailey Kouel arranged his installation-performances. Each of the audience threw eggs at the «black window» /painted on the wall/. Then everyone had to write with charcoal a word that began with the first letters of the word «Egg» , «Ovum» in any language. Post-collective creation of the installation has left the plied with eggs wall and an empty basket of eggs lighlighted by stroboscope. .
Olexiy Khoroshko & Sergiy Savchenko have built up a maze with the walls constructed of paintings and columns with mirrors and screens. The heads painted on the canvases were reflected in the mirrors immediately and on the screens - with a delay. The same happened with the reflections of the viewer entering that ancient Labyrinth where he/she is at the moment & he/she was the moment pre-order and finds/found himself/herself to be Taizé & the Minotaur. And the paintings are silently meditating concerning the squaring of the circle and they are loudly singing some psychedelic melodies /of course, with the help of dynamics/
Polish artist Hamlet Zinkovsky presented his installation so simple that it has acquired the signs of genius . He climbed a stool and stood there for 24 hours, «in memory of the lost time ». That «minute of silence" stretched for the whole day-night was dedicated to our lost & savings time» & it was demonstrated not so much for the audience as for Hamlet himself. But we also got the incentive to think what to do in the situations, when collisions with ourselves are more inevitable and merciless than in the maze of Khoroshko- Savchenko.
Kherson-city artist Stas Volyazlovsky presented his video with the optimistic name «The Death of Hollywood». His amateur /emphasized on the level of hyperbole/ homemade video, reflected the Hollywood stories, baldly mocking at shabbiness & stereopties of pop-culture. And it extra quizzes at the mediocre attempts to ape «import» culture.
The most responsible and appropriate to the declared theme of this year's «Tyzhden’» / «BN» / No Title/ artist who remained under the pseudo «artist N. from N. N city» has created in one of the many phantasmagoric rooms of the «Jam Factory» the installation that looked like an abandoned laboratory full of flasks, academic texts & questionnaires. Only at the end of the week/”Tyzhden’” the author , Myroslav Yaremak, appeared as himself, revealed his secret & collected a stack of questionnaires completed by visitors.
“On the eve” of the project “MediaDepo» Polish artist Anna Bernadska , an expressive fan of the corporal philosophy, demonstrated her performance & a real vision-show. She sticked her body all over with glamorous glossy pages of women-magazines & emerged as a victim of «media» and all sort of such like things
Another well-known Polish artist Jaroslav Pershko has created /as it seemed/ the most minimal installation with the patriotic name «Blue is Like It/He is. And Yellow Comes by Itself /Himself”. Some blue-colored room of the «Jam Factory» was brazenly disturbed with The Yellow pretending to be sand & it subsided on the floor ...
The afternoon met the evening or to be more precise, the evening-night program of video-sound from DJs and VJs /L’viv formation «RESTart»/ , which converted our minds into the course of “deep” electronics. Sunday.
Sunday day was presented by the video presentation of the Kyiv group «R.E.P.» (Revolutionary Experimental Space). Accompanied by the comments of Nikita Kadan, «Rappers» demonstrated the videos of their public art actions of 2005-2008 : «We will R.E.P. you »,« Party R.E.P.» / series « Intervention»/, performance «Lyricist», action “Contraband” /held at the customs in Shegini/, false official presentation of the Kyiv Academy of Arts and others.
Sunday evening /after the “chronic” «Mediadepo» presentations/ was opened with the concert of Ternopil-city psychedelic bands «Zeleni sestry» and «Zsuf». The artists and the wall behind them served as a screen for video that reinforced the effect of «removable roof» from music. Both the projects are performance- musical as music & show on the stage are inseparable elements for the musicians.. The audience was just “removed” to a parallel reality with the help of music & video.
Monday
”Tyzhden’/Week of Contemporary Art” was recognized to be saturated with the “weekend actions” & it went on with its “long-term” exhibitons/installations. So, “Tyzhden’” has casted its anchor. But the audience who visited the «Jam Factory» daily & was thirsty for some new impressions have no chance to be bored.
That day was the first one of the “School of Performance” conducted by the artist & performer Janusz Baldyga /Poland/ and Sibylle Omlin & her lectures / Professor of the Basel University & curator of the contemporary-art projects/ All long five days Mr. Baldyha taught his few dozen of people to “feel” that neoteric art and on Friday / just imagine!!!/ his students demonstrated their first attempts. “Applause bravo!” to his pedagogical talent & the performances of his students /they occurred to be surprisingly competent/.
Tuesday.
On Tuesday, Yurij Izdryk at the «Jam Factory» presented his action entitled «How to write a novel (45 minutes)». No doubt – the title was just a trick! Unexpectedly numerous audience /to the mind of Izdruk himself/ listened to the ancient cabbalistic fable about The Black Square & etc., & so on… and finally he just told about some psychoactive activities /such as religion, drugs, sex, war/ described in his new book «TAKE»./This is /or it’s/or this is as it is.
Wednesday.
The concert & installation entitled "Suprematism" was opened by Yuriy Yaremchuk as a percussionist and except gongs he chose some pieces of iron plates / different sizes & shapes/ as his instruments. Those plates were hung /well thought-out/ on the stage & created a kind of installation that perfectly suited to the entourage of desolated factory premises. In some minutes the action was joined by Mark Tokar & his bass and both of them have demonstrated the preternatural sounds & unusual methods. All above mentioned have resulted into some quite unexpectedly tender & thoughtful, even meditative music, sometimes so minimal that it approached null ...
Thursday.
On Thursday “Tyzhden’” granted its visitors an opportunity to participate in the creating of some gelio-graffiti in collaboration with Volodymyr &Tatyana Bakhtov /artists & couple from Mykolaiv-city/. Geliograffiti is a special artistic technique of reconstruction: it needs natural darkness /evening-night/, camera /few minutes exposure and low sensitivit/, flambeaus and imaginary object an artist is intended to “restore”. An artist with a torch portrays in space line by line the object. And all torch-points are fixed by camera. In L’viv the artists welcomed the audience to branches with torches & to promenade with lighted candles and that evoked a great enthusiasm within the youngest part of the viewers. The next day all photographs were exhibited in the Gallery “Dzyga”.
The same day Yuriy Barannik demonstrated his light installation involving L’viv Powder Tower & the chime of City Hall bells. Anyone could paint on the transparent films their own pictures and then the artist demonstrated them on the Tower wall. «Usually I do not like to work with architectural objects, I do not like to compete with architectural offices. I go to the forests, swamps and arrange there some fantastic light installations, audience – only my friends” – commented Yuriy Barannik. “ The given project’s original title was «Pavlov & L’viv Inhabitants» /Pavlov'sconceptualization of unconditional reflexes, or instincts /: every strike/gong of the City Hall bells is accompanied by the picture displayed on the Tower & that fact is fixed as unconditional reflex. So, later on, every strike of the City Hall “Big Ben” will cause some pictures in the minds.
Friday
The first «School of Performance» graduators presented a whole bouquet of performances: students from L’viv, Kyiv, Odessa, Transcarpathia patronized by their teacher Janusz Baldyga. Just at the inauguration of the “School” Janusz Baldyha “set the bar” by the presentation of his very concentrated performance «Boundary» making you every second experience the feeling «on the verge ». Thus, no wonder that even the first attempts of «School Performance» graduators were distinguished as to be of high level of conceptualism & minimalism.
Then the “School of Performance” was followed by the «Days ofPerformance Art in Lviv», curator - famous Polish artist Waldemar Tatarchuk. The “Days” were presented by the Polish Institute in Kyiv and Art Association «Dzyga».
Martha Bosovska. Performance «The Process of Remembering...». She /blindfold / few times climbed on her knees up & down the stairs leading to the catacombs. It’s much more easier to apprehend the obscurity each of us live in & uncertain search for the Path/Way when you are onlooker. But the enlightenment /equivalent of happiness/ & some new bright world “unfolding” before the out-comer from the darkness, confuse you even more. That is the way to manifest the teachings of Plato by means of feelings & without the terms - philosophising.
Michal Baldyga /Poland/ was circling-twisting around the «alive column» winding himself round with the canvas decorated with the slogan «don’t let your thoughts outstep their limits». The circles of his movement were reducing and then the canvas & words & thoughts embraced-folded the artist. And the viewers reflected on the impermeability of their own fundamental thoughts. The question « if break the fabric of everyday life – so what then?» is still urgent.
Polish artist Dominick Yalovinskyy enjoyed the audience with very bright & cheerful performance. Firstly, Dominic ,sitting in front of a mirror, stack himself all over with the pieces of gold – paper, painted his head in yellow, lavishly “deodoranted” artificial flowers /the audience enjoyed the wonderful mix of flavors/. Bonfire of the bouquets – that was the end of the performance. Information for ‘"nitiated” – Dominick is able to share his dear things with others.
Rostyslav Koterlin chose for his performance the figurative history of culture. He draw the picture, then it was torn with desperation & fired, the artist “ashed” himself & then draw one more picture. When the creative stock of ideas & styles was exhausted and no one sheet of paper appeared on the easel , the audience heard some «spengler» hollering- howling and people in masks approached the artist to share his grief.
Evening program at the «Jam Factory» presented some combination of literature, theater and video in the project «Mediateatr» /Yuriy Synenkyj and Natalya Ilchuk/.
Saturday
On Saturday the performances were presented by Waldeck Tatarchuk, Yaroslav Yanovsky, Vlodko Kaufman, Volodymyr Topiy and Miroslav Wajda.
Waldemar Tatarchuk covered the floor with salt and then with the pieces of ice he wrote on it the words «Do not cry it is the end». Drawing on temporary substance by temporary substance , mixing water & salt , producing the equivalent of tears he left the words to melt & to be treated down by people. Tatarchuk declared “clear” and vague hints at the futility of words & feelings in the passage of time and he demonstrated the compliance with the term «contemporary art».
Performance of VlodKaufman . For a long time the artist played chess with himself, now and then he replaced chess pieces by all sorts of small objects such as machine nuts, transistors, figurines, candles. The performance displayed the drama of creation & destruction resembling a game/play without rules. It demonstrated the Demiurge that played with his world by his own established rules, ignoring all the internal logic of his own creation.
Volodymyr Topiy made an attempt to bare the contemporaryartist’s cross. He step by step firstly nailed his clothes , then he made the cross, barred it, on his kneels crossed the road like he passed through all his life. And drivers took pictures with their mobile phones and the crowds of gapers did not shout «Crucify him!» , they cried «Eetswee, what’s this?». And then he came back…alone
Myroslav Wajda invited the audience to the desolated, half-drowned bomb-shelter /you could step there only in water-tight shoes/. There the artist demonstrated some post-apocalyptic action moving the circles made of the stretched strings and producing ringing «zen-s» sonds,. Then he traced strange signs on the wall & apposed alive fish to them ... The audience’s shock & surprise were not taken into account, it was rather accepted as a mystical action with the elements of horror. The scheme of presented catharsis looked as follows: fear, overcoming fear limit, spiritual & corporal circumcision.
After loading the brains with the performances the audience has’nt got any chance to relax without reflections. Evening Program has presented amazing improvisations of Vaclav Zimpel (clarinet) and Mark Tokar (bass) in collaboration with Olexiy Khoroshko’s scenography & multimedia performance. The audience could see only the color shades of the musicians on the screen, accompanied by the psychedelic images .
Sunday
And on Sunday, as it's customarily used from the creation of the world, god decided to rest & to see what has been done on the contemporary fields. The «Jam Factory» really is ready to become the Center for contemporary art as the idea of «actual art» has already entered the life of the «advanced» circles of L'viv audience. And undoubtedly, «Tyzhden’» will become not only an annual event but it’ll get in weight. What is the most important - all done was done not in vain. The impulse was launched.
”Tyzhden’/Week of Contemporary Art” met its finish with Oles’ Dzyndra's performance «The Structure of the Sign». In the courtyard of the «Museum of Ideas» Oles’ was outlining different signs with the molten glass on the fir boards. Red-hot lines glued to the boards, burned out strips, caused the smell of resin / incense and then froze, transforming into the fragile threads of glass. Those threads were broken into equal pieces , collected into a bucket & carried out. Only some slim black strips of signs on the boards were left. The structure hides the life and the last one has its consequences ...
To avoid some excessive pathos, it can be stated that “Tyzhden’/ Week of Contemporary Art” occurred to be a profound & informative event, the largest and probably the most intense art project in recent years and it has already captured its audience looking forward the next year. What else is needed ? .. It will be determined by the “Tyzhden’/ Week of Contemporary Art, 2010”.
© 2012 tam