PinchukArtCentre’s Research Platform presents three new exhibitions

The Research Platform of the PinchukArtCentre presents three exhibitions “Fedir Tetyanych. Canon Fripulia”, “Motherland on Fire”, and “Versus”. The aim of the Research Platform is to generate a living archive of Ukrainian contemporary Art from the early 80ties till present. The exhibition practice of the Research Platform develops and displays three main directions: exhibitions drawn from the research activities; a presentation of the PinchukArtCentre’s Collection; “PAC-UA Reconsideration”, investment in new production of young artists. 

“Fedir Tetyanych. Canon Fripulia”

17.06.2017 – 08.10.2017

The exhibition “Fedir Tetyanych. Canon Fripulia” is focused on one of the sides of the multifaceted creative work of artist Fedir Tetyanych whose artistic practice encompassed painting, drawing, sculpture, text, performance etc. 

Being part of the Union of Artists, Tetyanych was involved in carrying out official orders for monumental order, but at the same time, his personality, behaviour and artistic practice were an alternative to the official Soviet culture. Tetyanych was among the pioneers of the performance genre in the Ukrainian art: he is mostly famous for his odd-looking costumes and objects of trash and found materials. The artist used oftentimes foil or cans or other materials for his costumes that produced a certain sound when in motion. He put those costumes on in public spaces, including the premises of the Union of Artists, which gave him the reputation of a town freak who was proclaiming his own “eternity” and “infinity”: “I am Boundlessness”. These are the categories of eternity, infinity, and boundlessness served as the base for his philosophical and artistic doctrine: Fripulia. 

In contrast to the “trash aesthetics”, the exhibition “Fedir Tetyanych. Canon Fripulia” makes an attempt to conceptualise the artist’s practice by reflecting on his texts and presenting them as a self-sufficient medium and an integral part of his artistic oeuvre. Another element to Fedir Tetyanych’s universe - which is no less important – is the Biotechnosphere: an all-purpose module to accommodate and mobilize a human. Its genesis should be sought for in utopian visions of Leonardo da Vinci, Nikolay Fedorov or Vladimir Tatlin: what differs Tetyanych from his predecessors is mostly introduction of number attributes to his philosophic system that are typical for the era of cybernetics and achievements in space. In 1980s and 1990s, the artist built about five Biotechnospheres; none of them has been preserved. By implementing a reconstruction of two of them, based on drawings (one at scale 1 to 3 and the other life size), the curators sought to create perfect, almost serial production samples their author could be only dreaming of. 

Invited curator: Valeriy Sakharuk

Co-curator: Tatiana Kochubinska 

“Motherland on Fire” 

Intervention by Concrete Dates Collective

17.06.2017 – 08.10.2017

The exhibition “Motherland on Fire” offers one of views on the history of the Ukrainian society in the 1990s, narrated through a prism of selected works from the PinchukArtCentre collection. The title of the exhibition alludes to the film by Oleksandr Dovzhenko “Ukraine in Flames” which tells about the bloodshed that took place on the Ukrainian territory during World War II. However, the works presented in the exhibition do not relate in any way to military operations or the real frontline.

Flames in this case are a metaphor for the insecurity, trauma or conflict that the society felt already in the 1990s and that are reflected in the overall social instability, economic crisis, bad working conditions etc. 

The exhibition features works by Serhiy Bratkov, Volodymyr Kozhukhar, Eduard Kolodiy, Mykola Matsenko, Boris Mikhailov, Georgiy Senchenko, Illia Chichkan and group Peppers (Oleg Petrenko and Liudmyla Skrypkina). These works are linked by reflection on life after a technogenic catastrophe and perception of life during the first years of the post-Soviet Ukraine. Exposed together, these selected works outline the social and economic transition area that is marked in the collective consciousness as a “diagnosis” of the 1990s. 

Concrete Dates Collective group that works with commemoration practices and archiving, and engages in performative research, has been invited to take part in the exhibition. The artists have been suggested to reflect on the themes touched upon in the exhibition through a series of interventions.

Concrete Dates Collective emerged in spring 2015 as a group of artists working with various commemoration practices. By giving a special importance to archival materials and historic marginalia, CDC seeks to understand more profoundly public celebrations and festive events and their role in ideological narratives and life experience. 

Curator: Tatiana Kochubinska

PAC-UA Reconsideration: “Versus”

17.06.2017 – 17.09.2017

PAC-UA Re-consideration presents the 5^th project - a group exhibition including young artists Yulia Golub, Zina Isupova, Alina Kleytman, Aleksandr Kutovoy, Anna Rotayenko, Dmitry Starusyev. “Versus” is a result of a long-term cooperation of the invited curator Sergey Bratkov with the new generation of artists, students of The Rodchenko Art School (Moscow).

Versus is an inner debate that becomes the theme of reflection for the exhibition participants. Playing with the notion of dualism, they investigate the ambivalence of the artist as a personality and creator, the situation in between, an internal dispute, the border between the ethical and aesthetic. The exhibition displays the diversity of individual artistic practices, combining a collective view on the process of building a dialogue between the presented works.

Invited curator: Sergey Bratkov

Research Platform was launched by the PinchukArtCentre in 2016. It is an open platform for thinking, research and discourse that aims to generate a living archive of Ukrainian Art from the early 80ties till present. Accessible to all, the research platform is a pioneering project to preserve, catalogue and reconsider historical information that is crucial for critical reflection on Ukrainian identity today and tomorrow.