The phrase “Gogol is born” was used as a greeting at the launch of the exhibit of graphic works that are based on Nikolai Gogol’s (Mykola Hohol’s) works and executed by Serhii Yakutovych, a Merited Artist of Ukraine and winner of the Taras Shevchenko National Prize.
Yakutovych is also known for his graphic illustrations to the works by William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Alexandre Dumas, Alexei Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, etc. He has worked for five years on the graphic works based on Gogol’s works; some of them are presented in one of the halls of the Ukrainian Home. They come in different seizes, from A4 to wall-sized.
In early 2003 he drew illustrations to the book Taras Bulba, published as a separate volume. Afterwards there was a large project: working on Vladimir Bortko’s much-discussed film Taras Bulba. Yakutovych made thousands of sketches of scenery, costumes, mise-en-sc ne selections, sketches of the main characters’ makeup, and stage props. Moreover, in 2008 the artist created illustrations for the stories Vechera na khutore bliz Dikan’ki (Evenings on a Farm near Dykanka), Mirgorod (Myrhorod), and the project entitled “Gogol. Complete Stories.”
“Thanks to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Ukraine and Pavlo Hudimov we were given opportunity to arrange the space: thus, we are now standing between the pages of a big book. It was done by a huge team of people. It is gratifying for me to have worked with young people; we both enjoyed our cooperation.
“It took me my whole life to prepare it, because the first book I read in my life was not a fairy tale, but Gogol’s Vii. Later my father kept telling that I had to make Taras Bulba, and when I was the same age as the main character, I understood him. I made Taras Bulba three times, but there are many books, and I am greedy, so it is better to go ahead than to return.
“On April 1 I opened a similar exhibit in Paris. I did not need much money for this — only people’s desire and a belief that all of us are doing a good thing together with Gogol,” Yakutovych said.
Graphic works are not the only attraction point of the exhibit. Pavlo Hudimov, a musician, artist, the head of the Ya Gallery, and a co-organizer of the event, produced, together with other artists, several dozens of man-sized black-colored plastic figures of Gogol’s characters. In the corner, on a black ballot box (for comments) was the figure of Death. In the same place all kinds of evil spirits were swaying back and forth. The exhibit was accompanied by so-called museum music: a set of sounds, bearable cacophony, where one could make out squeaking, peeping, and muffled bird voices.
“All of this was created on the computer and digitized. We are showing here the monumental effects one can achieve via an installation involving help from architects and designers. The Hudimov Art Project, Aktsent Creative Group, the Ya Gallery, and Ya Design are in charge of it. Twenty specialists worked on this installation for 2.5 months. The figures create a feeling of presence, even if there are not many visitors here. But do not take Gogol too seriously. These characters are Gogol’s irony,” Hudimov said.
For some it is irony, whereas others, like Pavlo Movchan, a writer, the head of the Prosvita Association, and a winner of the Shevchenko Prize, feel great drama and even religious motifs in Gogol’s themes.
“It seems to me that this interpretation of Gogol’s work in the 21st century is most adequate of all possible kinds of interpretations. The exhibit aroused in me a need to return to the text: I want to compare whether these are indeed the characters as depicted by Gogol. It seems to me they do not lack anything: down to the smallest details, laconic things that are more picturesque and expressive than possible colored versions.
“I cannot imagine Gogol in color because our archetypes appear to us black-and-white, especially if we speak about the lower-rank evil spirits that reign in the world as the mouthpiece of all evil. And evil has many faces. Gogol recorded this in Mertvye dushi (Dead Souls) and in all of his works, because the life of the people in his epoch, as he represented it, is also evil.
“The most tragic story here is one from the Bible. I have long thought that these are biblical plots: I mean the fact that a father killed his son in Taras Bulba. Yakutovych seemed to be reading my thoughts, because this is the way I imagined them, the way I perceived them. We are standing here and his characters are two meters away from us. The feeling of space is unique,” Movchan said.
But apparently, every artist has his own vision of Gogol. Petro Honchar, head of the Ivan Honchar Museum, was impressed by the exhibit — but in his own way: “Yakutovych’s Gogol is spatially realistic. You see him as a reality, not an image. It seems to me that there is a kind of exaggeration in this. I would like to see more of conditional character, more form than content, and less bombast. But everything is done so masterly and convincingly that I perceive everything as a positive. Different visions are a good thing because they expand Gogol’s world.”
Yakutovych’s Gogol is impressive. The visitors said that they had never seen anything of this kind before. The artist cannot say at the moment that for him everything is over with Gogol. If someone offers an interesting project, why not? “The main thing is that when you work with great authors, they give you with energy,” Yakutovych said. Visitors have time only until April 17 to feel this energy.
