The exhibition is called “Lviv-ARTextiles.” At some point Lviv became the heart of professional artistic textiles development. The city of Lviv with its ability to radiate intellectual and creative energy, influenced by the fact that contemporary textiles art has not only adapted global form-shaping and technological innovations, but also transformed them into a peculiar manner. Lviv coffee brand “Halka” supported the artists’ plans to organize an exhibit in Kyiv, because the artistic life in Lviv has always had a coffee flavor, associated by Lviv artists at a genetic level with a creative process. “Coffee from Lviv” and jazz music that could be heard at the exhibit, created a unique atmosphere during the opening of “Lviv ARTextiles.”
The main goal of this exhibition, which displays works of 23 artists, is a presentation of artistic textiles from Lviv as a particularized phenomenon in the context of contemporary Ukrainian art practices, in which it plays the role of a promoter of innovations and global trends in this field. The peculiarity of the exposition is that along with well-known artists and famous art-lovers from Kyiv it brings together talented young artists, who with their bold experiments show that contemporary textiles art is an inexhaustible source of creative reflections, which, despite its locality, have reasons to influence the overall art discourse.
Fans of classic tapestry weaving can see at the exhibition modern Lviv tapestry – its figurative and plastic language is enriched with technological innovations of the author (Oksana Rybotytska, Lilia Kvasnytsia, and Marta Malinovska).
Along with classical techniques, which also include batik painting (Viktoria Dubovyk, Dana Yakymchuk) and applique work (Olia Paruta, Natalia Shymin, Dana Yakymchuk, Marichka Timenyk), the exposition features panels made in a variety of contemporary textile techniques, using both textiles and other materials: metal, plastic, leaves, etc. There are also presented works made in various other techniques: using fiber and glue (Sofia Burak, Tamila Pecheniuk, Marichka Antoniak), felting (Lilia Lupul), and author techniques (Volodymyr Hankevych, Natalia Kuka, Marichka Timenyk, Tereza Barabash, Lina Savchenko, Yulia Bulysh, Anna Popova, and Romana Skoropad). Authors of all these mono and poly-structures use the complex interpretation of the notion of art work “collage space.”
Since artistic textiles certainly spread into spatial qualities of modern shaping, at the exhibition you can also find very expressive installations made with the help of the materials that are not commonly found in textile art: wood, glass, and water (Oksana Borysova, Natalia Shymin, Vasylyna Burianyk, and Ivanna Mamchuk). For example, the presence of an aquarium with colored liquid in the exhibition that symbolizes aggressive environment of an imaginary creature (made of textiles) was a surprise, to some extent, for the visitors who had traditionally expected to see primarily textiles panels and similar objects, typical for such exhibitions.
The exhibit “Lviv ARTextiles” will be open until November 11. It will help Kyiv residents and tourists discover this page of contemporary Ukrainian art for themselves, because this is how we should view artistic textiles, which has long been broadening its artistic space without, of course, leaving its traditional – ornamental and applied sphere, which is now being developed in line with the design.
