First retrospective exhibition of Ukrainian new media art held in Wrocław

The first retrospective exhibition of Ukrainian new media art titled [De][Re]Construction opens in Wrocław, Poland on the 1st of April 2016. The project is curated by Ianina Prudenko (Kyiv, Ukraine), who is the founder of the Open Archive of Ukrainian Media Art, and Andrii Linik (Lviv,Ukraine), media artist, co-founder of the Institute of Actual Art in Lviv.

The history of Ukrainian media art resembles a dotted line that only in recent has come to resemble a continuous narrative. As far back as in the middle of the 2000s, early Ukrainian media art works existed only on VHS. Thus, to form a comprehensive image of Ukrainian art and to know whether it exists at all, it was necessary to collect hundreds of personal stories and memories, unsorted documents and files.

[De][Re]Construction is the first retrospective representation of Ukrainian media art in the format of exhibition.

This project represents Ukrainian media art not so much chronologically as through the topics identified as characteristic of Ukrainian artists in the course of work with the Open Archive of Ukrainian Media Art. Some of these topics, like, for instance, Criticism of TV or loop and glitch techniques go hand in hand with global media art trends, while others, like postmodernist citation of silent films in the 1990s, might be a distinctive feature of Ukrainian media art. The spatial arrangement of exhibition blocks hints at somewhat chronological representation. Thus, the project opens with Eros and Thanatos and [Optical] Illusions, the topics typical of early Ukrainian media art, and ends with Revolution and War, represented with the works reflecting either foretelling war conflict in the east of Ukraine. However, the blocks themselves contain works created in the 1990s, as well as in the 2000s, so it is possible to conclude that certain topics remained burning for Ukrainian society (like, for instance, blocks with works dedicated to people with special needs those made in homage to Malevich).

[De][Re]Construction is a part of the III triennial of contemporary Ukrainian art UKRAINIAN CROSS-SECTION: recreation (curator – Vlodko Kaufman) presented during the program of events “Wrocław – Lviv: European Capital of Culture Wrocław-2016”.

The exhibition is centered around the collection of the Open Archive of Ukrainian Media Art* that is an independent initiative by curator Ianina Prudenko. Some artworks are given by the artists, works by late Oleksander Hnylytskyij are permitted by his family to be shown and the installation by Odesa artist Oleksander Shevchuk is taken from the collection of Anatoly Dymchuk.

The Archive includes pieces of Ukrainian media art from independent archives of Ukrainian artists and curators ‒ Oleksandr Solovyov, Natalia Manzhali, Miroslav Kulchitsky, Bohdan Shumylovych, and Archive’s partners ‒ CSM, TOTEM, Museum of Odessa Modern Art, Kharkiv City Art Gallery.

The exhibition [De][Re]Construction. Ukrainian media art 1991‒2016 is held from the 1st, April to 3rd, May 2016.

Place: Wrocław, Kamienica, Rynek 25

Free entry

Program

Eros and Thanatos

Oleksander HNYLYTSKYJ. Dance With Death. Anamorphosis, 2001, installation

Oleksander HNYLYTSKYJ, Natalia FILONENKO, Maxim MAMSIKOV. Curved Mirrors, 1993, video art

Viktor LAVNYJ. Terminal, 2011, multimedia installation

Oleksandr ROYTBURD. Eros And Thanatos Of The Victorious Proletariat In Dziga Vertov’s Psychomotor Paranoia, 2002, video art

[Optical] Illusions

INSTITUTION OF UNSTABLE THOUGHTS (Oleksander HNYLYTSKYJ, Lesja ZAJAC).Visual Vinyl, 2004, video

INSTITUTION OF UNSTABLE THOUGHTS (Oleksander HNYLYTSKYJ, Lesja ZAJAC).

the plateAria, 2006, video installation

Illya ISUPOV, Ivan TSUPKA. Zhaga, 1998, video art

Oleksander SHEVCHUK. Mozart And Salieri, 2008, installation, from the collection of Anatoliy Dymchuk

Criticism of TV

Mariia GONCHAR. Tv Has Attacked Us All Our Lives, Now We Fight Back. Now We Make Our Own Tv/Nam June Paik, 2013-2016, video

Alevtina KAKHIDZE. Project «I'M BEING LATE FOR THE PLANE THAT CAN’T BE MISSED»  (2010-2011) and two tv reports: news program «TSN-Ukraine», TV Channel 1+1;  news program «Vikna-Novyny» of 9/16/2010, TV Channel STB

Alevtina KAKHIDZE. Project «STRAWBERRY (KLUBNIKA) ANDREEVNA» (2015)

 and tv report from the news program «Vikna-Novyny» of 3/4/2015, TV Channel STB

Gleb KATCHUK. Apocalypso, 1997, video art

Gleb KATCHUK, Olga KASHIMBECKOVA. Tv Program «Untitled», 1997-2000, video

Ute KILTER. Tv Program «Situation Ute», 1993–till now, video

Miroslav KULCHITSKY, Vadim CHEKORSKY. Quis Leget Haec?, 1997, video art

TOTEM. Liquid TV, 2014, video

Vasyl TSAGOLOV. Solid TV, 1998, video

Silent movie

Iliya CHICHKAN. Alter Idem, 1994, video art

Gleb KATCHUK. Melies 2000, 1999, video art

Oleksandr ROYTBURD. Psychedelic Invasion Of The Battleship Potyomkin Into Sergey Eisenstein's Tautological Hallucinations, 1998, video art

Glitch/Loop

Maksym AFANASYEV. Wedding Songs Of Kherson Region, 2009, video art

Alina IAKUBENKO. Folders, 2013, hybrid art

SHIJAN. Chukovsky, 2005, video art

Alexander VERESHCHAK, Margarita ZINETS. Wings Of Dove, 2000, video installation

Homage to Malevych

akuvido. Web Wuerfel Werkstatt, 2001, net.art

akuvido. City Interactive, 2004, net.art

Andrii LINIK. Pythagoras, 2011, interactive media installation

Andrii LINIK. Om, 2012, robotic sound installation

Oleksiy KHOROSHKO. 6 works from the «Elements» series, 2007, canvas, mixed media

Simon KHRAMTSOV. Black Screen, 2013, video art

Oleksandr SMOLSKYY, Yuriy SMOLSKYY. Richard III, 2002, video

Disabled People

Oksana CHEPELYK. Deaf Mute Chorus, 1998-2004, video

Gleb KATCHUK, Olga KASHIMBECKOVA. Antikaraoke, 2001, video art

Yuriy KRUCHAK, Yulia KOSTEREVA. Invisible Points Of Way, 2007, video

Sergey POPOV. Snail, 2006, video art

Revolution and War

Mykhaylo BARABASH. Shooting Gallery, 2013, interactive installation

Alina IAKUBENKO. Flag, 2014, video

Anton LAPOV. #hero (project of the media exhibit for the museum of modern history of Ukraine), 2016, media installation

Ianina PRUDENKO. Mythogenesis, 2015, audiovisual installation

Oleksiy SAY. Winter Landscape With The Branching Road And Craters, 2016, mixed media

Oleksiy SAY. Summer Landscape With Craters Formed With Exploded Mortar Shells And Gun Artillery, 2016, mixed media