“Guilt”

21.05.2016 – 02.10.2016

Artists: Sergey Bratkov, Nikita Kadan, Alevtina Kakhidze, Yuri Leiderman,

Mykola Ridnyi, Lesia Khomenko, Fast Reaction Group, Masoch Fund.

The exhibition explores the question of the historical and individual guilt and responsibility.

In Ukraine, both in the early 1990s, which were marked by political uncertainty, and amid the current military conflict in its east, the rejection of one's own role, and efforts to justify acts with external circumstances (as opposed to scrutinizing oneself in an honest manner) defines the policy of memory.

“Guilt” highlights the radical acts and performances of the 1990s when artists started reconsidering the post-war history, putting viewers in the position of ethical discomfort. The works, in which they tried on the roles of the enemy, victim or invader, possibly for the first time ever touched upon the issue of guilt and responsibility for one's own choice and made the issue of winners and losers a subject of research. The exhibition combines these works with the projects of the recent years, which concern the ghostly memories of the past and the victims of the present. This dialogue puts on the agenda the question of sacrifice, guilt and responsibility in the whirlpool of events taking place in Ukraine today, when historical references become a tool of political manipulation and contribute to the division into "us" and "them" instead of mediating dialogue.

The exhibition is seeking to destroy the established concepts of "believers" and "infidels" while stating that willingness to sacrifice is not subject to hierarchization. Against the background of excited social blindness aggravated by the information war, the exhibition sends the message that one cannot share another person's experience but can understand it.

Curator: Tatiana Kochubinska

Co-curator: Björn Geldhof

“Transformation”

collection presentation

21.05.2016 – 08.01.2016

Artists: Oleg Golosiy, Edouard Kolodiy, Oleksandr Roitburd, Vasyl Tsagolov,

Illya Chichkan, Svitlana Martynchik & Ihor Stiopin, Institution of Unstable Thoughts (Oleksandr Hnylytskyi and Lesja Zajac).

"Transformation" focuses on display of paintings mainly, which reflect transitional processes that took place in the contemporary Ukrainian art on the verge of change (late 1980s – early 2000s). The works presented on the exhibition show renovation of artistic language, which is associated with the transformation of the system of thinking, and reflect the transition "from one cultural phenomenon to another”. The possibility of interpreting, a play with the world history of art and culture, and metaphorical artistic language are the main features of the works presented on the exhibition.

Irony, playing relation to reality and perception of art as a game, which sometimes acquires transgressive forms (I. Chichkan), are determinant for the most of the works. Trying to create an absurd picture out of nothing, S. Martynchik and I. Styopin allude in their work to the picture of a French journalist and writer A. Allais "Negroes Fighting in a Tunnel by Night". Phantasmagoric half-fabricated half-cited works of O. Golosiy appeal to the viewer’s emotional perception, providing space for free interpretation.

The exhibition also shows artists’ attempt to go beyond a painting. Thus, the Institution of Unstable Thoughts (O. Hnylytskyi and L. Zajac) by means of simple visual illusions provides "analogue" animated picture that unfolds in real time and space in front of the audience. In the early 2000s V. Tsagolov returns to the format of the big picture, "introducing" in it his own performative experience of the 90s.

Curator: Tatiana Kochubinska

“Exhibition”

by Lada Nakonechna

21.05.2016 – 04.09.2016

In the frameworks of “PAC-UA Reconsideration”, the continuation of exhibitions’ series in PinchukArtCentre, the main idea of which is to research the relations and influences between Ukrainian art scene of today and artistic practices of the past. It shows new works created by new generation of artists inspired by older artistic positions.

The Exhibition by Lada Nakonechna questions the modes of mediating contemporary art within given spatial and ideological circumstances of an art institution. Conceived as part of the newly established PinchukArtCenter research platform and Re-consideration project, it interrogates the complexity of issues related to the methods and mechanisms of visual representation while examining its own predicament within multiple institutional narratives.

The end corner of the fourth floor of PAC Nakonechna’s Exhibition is simultaneously the space and the exhibit, or conversely a complex installation embodied in the institutional structure. It contains fragments and quotations from the artist’s earlier works that become deprived of their former context and, together with supplementary elements, are put into new configurations. The remnants of the artist’s history are exposed to the viewer, although their form remains incomplete. Lada Nakonechna’s artistic speculations depict gaps, alterations and manipulations as integral to the process of constructing history. Her interventions are disturbing, putting the viewer in the position of discomfort and bewilderment in order to provoke and acknowledge his or her active participation.

The installation embraces three massive, diagonal walls with a collection of institutional records displayed on them: notes, sketches, photographs and plans. They all refer to the show pre-conditions including budgeting, institutional program and space articulation.

Pivotal to the show are the two eyeholes mounted in the walls of the exhibition room. One directs the viewer towards the outside of the PinchukArtCenter, whereas the other connects with the neighbouring space in which the collection of PAC is displayed. The intervention underlines the dynamic between art mediated through its agents – such as galleries, curators, collectors, and so on – and the artistic practices that escape formal institutions in order to interact directly with the social sphere. Such an arena of negotiations between the elitist modes of formation of art and its relation with the social and political realm is inherent not only to the individual work of Lada Nakonechna, but also to her collective practice with the R.E.P group.

Curator: Anna Smolak

The visit of curator is provided by the Polish Institute in Kyiv.

Research Platform will be located on the 4th floor of the art center. Opening hours: from Tuesday through Sunday from 12 am to 9 pm. Admission is free.