According to the statement made by one of the founders of the new Center of Modern Art Ruslan Tarabukin, the main goal of M17 is to support Ukrainian artists, especially young ones. They also strive, consistently and even aggressively (in a positive meaning of the word), to cooperate with international key exhibition projects, biennale, auctions, and respectable fairs like, for example, Art Basel, Freeze, FIAC, etc.
The Center opened with the large-scale painting exhibition Seeds of Oliva (… From Transavantgarde to Postmodernity). One of its curators was the legendary Achille Bonito Oliva, teacher of History of Contemporary Art at La Sapienza University, who in the late 1970s of the previous century coined the term of transavantgarde. This would later have a truly magical impact on the formation of new Ukrainian painting. Opening his project he wrote: “The art of transavantgarde is a result of the resistance of intellectual consciousness (a somewhat more rational consciousness). It doesn’t fall into the trap of mass production. Instead, it takes the opposite strategy: it practices the neutralization of any trends of fashion. Understanding art includes the understanding of the uselessness of esthetic struggle against reality. Art revises its methodology and takes a position of latency. It assimilates with the ordinary. The strategy of ‘toreador’s side step’—he’ll only hit the bull worse.”
The names of the artists whose works were presented at the opening day, have been polished by time: Matvii Vaisberh, Oleksandr Hnylytsky, Ihor Husiev, Illia Isupov, Dmytro Kavsan, Oleksandr Klymenko, Maksym Mamsykov, Oleksandr Roitburd, Adrii Sahaidakovsky, Viktor Sydorenko, Yurii Solomko, Anatol Stepanenko, Vasyl Tsaholov, and Illia Chychkan. Experts, however, argued whether it is proper to call all the abovementioned artists “seeds” of the transavantgarde theorist Oliva, because formally not all of the mentioned artists belonged to the Southern Rus’ wave which fed on freedom-loving ideas of the Italian art critic in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, very soon everybody agreed that the art is good and the first pancake is not lumpy.
The curator of the Ukrainian side – the well-known art critic Oleksii Tytarenko, bold in language and bright in his metaphors – in response to possibly ill-natured people yelled rather than said: “Let’s strike the cold sterility of the postindustrial world with a hot Ukrainian Wave!” The words themselves line up into slogans – the time has come. Sotheby’s Lord Mark Poltimore chimed in with what Joanna Vickery, senior director of the Sotheby’s Russian Department said: “We are so much looking forward for something from Ukraine! M17 is preparing a Ukrainian SENSATION!”
This optimistic note could be the end of the story but foreseeing possible questions about the name of the center – M17 (not explained by the organizers), I asked the director of the Center of Modern Art Tarabukin (a very talented artist, by the way, whose works could also be seen in the halls of the center) for some explanations. “To tell the truth, I thought about a name for the gallery for a long time and it was even painful. The name M17 appeared unexpectedly, I can’t even remember when exactly it happened. In Soviet times there was an experimental scout air plane called M17, which was developed by the talented constructor Vladimir Myasischev during the Cold War. When he was designing a unique machine he knew that it would be an air plane which would go beyond the erstwhile standards – the M17 had to be one of a kind, and a technological breakthrough. What is the Avantgarde Art Gallery if not a pioneer, a scout in the modern world of art? Besides I loved the symbolism hidden in this strict minimalist abbreviation: M — youth (from Ukrainian ‘molod’), 17 – the age of growing up, when boys and girls graduate from school and stand before a choice of whom to become. At 17 some choose art (‘mystetstvo’ in Ukrainian) – again M17. Three chary signs that united in them, in fact, represent the main essence of the reason for organizing this gallery.”
The Center can be found at the address: Gorky (Antonovych) Str., 104
