Comic strips by Serhii Yakymenko, idyllic photos of Ukrainian countryside by Kostiantyn Chernichkin, Oksana Chepelyk’s kaleidoscopic video all together make up a variegated exposition. More than 30 authors from Ukraine and America took part in the project. The exhibit was a follow-up to the project “The Practice of Modification” housed at the Institute for Problems of Contemporary Art at the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine. Both initiatives are about artists’ reflections and research into national identification and the realization of the individual’s personal role in society.
IMAGES OF FREEDOM
Both Americans and Ukrainians celebrate their Independence Day in the summer, on July 4 and August 24, respectively. This prompted the idea of a joint freedom-themed project. “Together with our American colleagues we decided to look into how the notion of independence is understood by artists, how dependence and independence correlate in our minds. We also played on such notions as ‘coefficient’ and ‘efficiency.’ We wanted to draw parallels between our countries and cultures, and highlight our similarities and differences,” tells Natalia Shpytkovska, one of the curators of “The Coefficient of Independence.” Among the participants were authors from Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Odesa, and three artists from the US, who have Ukrainian background.
At the heart of the exposition was the comparison of Ukrainian and American ideas about the fight for freedom. Roman Mykhailov’s Burn is like a big, raw wound. The artist singed sheets of paper with the flames of burning tires from Maidan. Next is a photo by American David Tsiklauri. The Price of Freedom was taken at a Santa Monica beach, where there is a memorial of the soldiers killed in Iraq. Every fallen soldier means a new cross. The author watched the memorial grow week by week, as new victims of war arrived.
Lilia Chavaha makes funny collages. The artist stitched a photo of Khrushchev’s speech on his visit to the US with light-blue threads. She dubbed the collage In the Business of Twaddling. Valentyn Popov from San Francisco combines iconic images of Ukrainians and Americans. In his Saint Batman the superhero (resembling St. George) kills a bad guy with a spear. The Orthodox Christian imagery, familiar to Ukrainians, serves as the ground for iconic American mass media types.
WAR AND THE SUBCONSCIOUSNESS
One of the dimensions of “The Coefficient of Independence” is the war in the east of Ukraine. Bella Lohachova’s Make Up Donbas is a visual chronicle telling the story of seizure of IZOLYATSIA Foundation headquarters in Donetsk by the militants of the so-called DNR. In the center towers a huge lipstick, a reminder of Pascale Martine Tayou’s installation Make Up!, blown up by terrorists.
Due to the developments in this country, people perceive some works in a totally different manner than the author. No War in This Picture is the name of Olesia Trofymenko’s work: a few boys are running along the beach, but due to the color scheme and their postures it seems like they spurt amid fire and explosions. Trofymenko shares the story of the picture: “When I was working on the sketch, it was just memory work, of shooting a film on the Arabatska Strilka spit, with a huge team. It was peacetime, way before Maidan. While I was working on it, Maidan began, and my friends said I was making a film about war. I was trying to convince them that I had no such intention, thence the name. Probably, what is inside us cannot but affect our actions. This is why it turned out to be a picture about war, despite the name.”
Poetic reflections on independence are also part of the exhibit at the America House. Among the pictures the visitors can see prosaic and poetic texts about freedom, written by Ukrainian authors. There are works both by young poets (Iryna Tsilyk, Dmytro Lazutkin, Olena Herasymiuk) and by renowned writers, such as Oksana Zabuzhko. Says Natalia Yevdokymova, literary curator of the exhibit: “Both in Ukraine and US artists seek to find their own spot, from where they could watch the surrounding world and feel its problems. This spot is unique for each author. And this is what our exhibit is about: showing an infinity of such spots.”
Art project “The Coefficient of Independence” is open through September 17. Admission is free, you will only need to show your ID.
