Podium (2017) video installation, mono-channel, duration: 52 sec. (loop)
«No, not one shall be forgotten who was great in the world. But each was great in his own way, and each in proportion to the greatness of that which he loved… Everyone shall be remembered, but each became great in proportion to his expectation. One became great by expecting the possible, another by expecting the eternal, but he who expected the impossible became greater than all».
Soren Kierkegaard. Fear and Trembling
Titles (2016)
«Titles are kind of willing to relate to the construction of an existing image - alternate, reproduce themselves in details, which they are able to imagine. They take on the images of the environment, like insects or plants mimic the coloring of the surrounding, like an information field consists of signs and symbols. More...
No title (2016) Mixed media
Time loop (2016)
While catching the time to the touch I am enlacing three storylines:
1. Negatives that had yet been printed on glass – remains of some Kiev photo studio, which ceased to exist a long time ago. This story from the past remains completely fictional and not connected with a certain feeling or memories for me. Those found images belong much more to the general historical memory than to “my” family album. This uncertainty, which I accept with gratitude, enhances the feeling of time distance. More...
Ferris wheel (2016) Mixed media
Work is based on family archive: on photo of my mother and father wedding ceremony. I was led by idea of ideal word with its absolute harmony, – how it can be seen in a small village in 1970. More...
Orchestra pit (2016)
From the last balcony of the opera house an orchestra pit looks like an abstract composition of lines, shadows and light spots. It twinkles, shimmers and breathes — it lights up with intermission and fades away with the bell for beginning of the act. More...
The steps (2015)
I wanted to bring back to life the feeling of presence of those people, whose steps have been kept in the treads of my house for more than hundred years. The project consists of five objects (boxes) with double-sided pictures of stairwells. More...
««Piano in Progress» is an art endeavor that aims to create a space for an organic coexistence of sound, object and the art practices of one instrument: the piano. The image of the piano is viewed here not only as an acoustic instrument carrying the entire history of music from the 17th century, but also as an artifact which has practically absorbed the entirety of most resent culture, from the early avan-garde to the conseptualist strategies of our day».
Vitaly Patsyukov
The Field (2015)
There is reflection on the concept of «native» land, on getting used to a place and its history, which may seem relative, similar to a chalk drawing. You can wipe off this picture and replace it with a different history and purpose. More...
Metronome (2015)
No title (2015)
Mother (2015)
Wax (2015)
Wax has its' own language, which combines smell, colour and «filling» structure. Painting the light, defining its borders with the wax stripes by rubbing the surface seems to be the only correct option. More...
Horizon (2015)
Once I encountered a photo, dated 1944, from Montelimar, France, which reached me quite strongly. It is about the campaign «L’epuration sauvage», which stands for detection and massacre of women, suspected in connections with the Nazis. More...
Orchard (2015)
Apple garden that one had seen through the coals of dry branches and the «apple-hills» under feet. The garden as the flow of time. More...
Exodus (2014)
Chapter 14 Verse 21
…and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
The Presence (2014)
The works are set up on the image of St. Andrew's Church. One can see this Church from every spot of the pedestrian Podil. The exhibition is dedicated to Kyivan Podil with its mysteries, secrets and coincidences, — meetings and fortuities. It is the Kyivan cradle, the soul of the City. It is a place, as a part of which I feel myself.
Darning (2014)
Cherry garden — collages, — works with elements of appliqués, — fabric, rough threads, fragments of stocking.
The depth seems at stratification of materials — when every element shows up, a solo comes forward.
From the private correspondence (2013)
Nice luster. But way too heavy.
VenedictYerofeyev «Moscow-Petushki»
«Dear friend —
This is a dedication to all the small and big provincial towns with all of their ceremonies, pretensions and habits, in which the Splendid Luster in the main theatre on the main square was, is and will be the center of the Universe. More...
My empire is going under the water (2012)
I write from an Empire whose enormous flanks
Extend beneath the sea. Having sampled two
Oceans as well as continents, I feel that I know
What the globe itself must feel: there's nowhere to go.
Elsewhere is nothing more than a far-flung strew
Of stars, burning away.
Josef Brodsky «Cape Cod Lullaby».
This quotation from Brodsky linked a cycle of my paintings and served me as a pitchfork determining the sound of the project. More...
Climate control (2011-2012)
It's about working with space, with one's inner space, which borders are inviolable and non-material. One's own, individual climate in which a question of personification calls for an eternal question of someone's guarded borders. Self-discovery of new differences and similarities since every new day brings its new ego. More...
The story of one disappearance (2013)
Erudite person and philosopher Nicolas Flamel (1330-1418), according to the legend, is the only person, who succeeded in preparing the philosopher’s stone, which can turn quicksilver into gold and grant immortality to its’ owner. More...
Flea waltz (2010)
Painting comes in easy way — one trifle meets a trick, a Rube Goldberg machine starts a chain reaction, like a reaction on some vaccine, and it goes on and on. So I'm starting to realize that if I'll change something once again, then I get a brand new work, for which, perhaps, I already have a new meaning and new canvas. More...
Season for hunting, landscapes (2008-2011)
Secret Lover of the Ukrainian Contemporary Art.
Poor Brecht complained about his grey Germany, saying that in that country alcohol should be given free of charge for those paints. Are we Germans? Look around: Kyiv is so picturesque that it models pictorial vision and pictorial way of life. More...
Simply beauty (2009-2016)
Painting like a living creature is an equation with one unknown. Lighted with a dark spark, simple and understandable inorganic elements, combined in an inconceivable way, obtain the ability to live, feel, and think. More...
Swan lake (2008)
The corps de ballet got drunk. Somewhere under the gridirons, behind the opera curtains, between the gloomy and hangover morning and the evening fever before the show there it was — a little creature — wandering, watching, drawing something really seriously. Now the show starts, and here it is — soaring among the lights. Feels like the Lloyd Webber's creation — a ghost appearing in the opera. But everybody is alive. Still. However, the life, soaked with the rehearsal sweat, has gained some intrigue. More...
My empire is going under the water
I write from an Empire whose enormous flanks
Extend beneath the sea. Having sampled two
Oceans as well as continents, I feel that I know
What the globe itself must feel: there's nowhere to go.
Elsewhere is nothing more than a far-flung strew
Of stars, burning away.
Josef Brodsky «Cape Cod Lullaby».
This quotation from Brodsky linked a cycle of my paintings and served me as a pitchfork determining the sound of the project.
... if the Water — astonishing, amazing in its depth, mobility —
is the Birth and Dying — the Appearance and Disappearance —
allows to look into its golden mean — why not to try to
save and to use its creepy by its pretentiousness glance? ... changed
by time to incognizance — darkened breathable surface.
For the objects — floating beings — I've used a self-portrait technique,
as the opportunity to match individual personalities of the author with
any detail of the infinite variety of the world — the world of
multiplying faces, shades, expressions, moments —
when each of them are in the state of recognition of their own
features.
A. M.
Climate control
It's about working with space, with one's inner space, which borders are inviolable and non-material. One's own, individual climate in which a question of personification calls for an eternal question of someone's guarded borders. Self-discovery of new differences and similarities since every new day brings its new ego.
«Climate control» is about sensing fatality, getting that feel of your ego, surviving. It seems to me that lots of awfully important and necessary things are left behind «the pale of settlement», and maybe those are the most important things. Marginal things, unneeded things.
It's because the man's Will and Right to control are infinite. They're as strong, as unbearable is the awareness of his helplessness.
I think that it's instinctive – salvation of your existance, always, everywhere. And now, the man with a lantern is walking on the water, that in one moment has destroyed everything, and he's looking for truth, for some answers, for his ego.
That's why the work has this restrained, even boring manner of painting – without bright splashes. Control.
Except just being shown, painting objects can play the central semantic role. It's a kind of strip (like a sticky tape for flies) from the very top to the very bottom (from the ceiling to the floor), pretty wide and accented with light. The «sticky tape» itself is mostly like a celluloid, a film, and it's framed, with pictures of different cities on it, — famous places, unknown places. In excecution – it's printing on cellophane or plastic. Different animals and people are «stuck» on this tape (a kind of those little figures that are usually sold for children). And after plastic finishing all of them are be «bound» with the whole picture. If there are several objects, then it's great!
A bit of Japan in our climate, that makes it full of rationality – the climate of mind and technology, that turns out to be such a territory of fears.
Flea waltz
Painting comes in easy way — one trifle meets a trick, a Rube Goldberg machine starts a chain reaction, like a reaction on some vaccine, and it goes on and on. So I'm starting to realize that if I'll change something once again, then I get a brand new work, for which, perhaps, I already have a new meaning and new canvas. This mechanism runs by my presence — a common story for all the artists. But still it all has a great meaning — the smell, the sound, the state, the color of the walls, the air — and when all this substances focus on me, the work emerges, lives, breathes.
Obviously I see an impression itself as a fundament of all my works — an emotion, a feeling — light and color as a key elements of its translation, transmission, interpretation. So — long live art (its eyes my eyes) — the thing is about a child's memory from an ancient times, this light-color addiction of me.
An arched-shaped bridge appears in front of my eyes — green waters flicker with unimaginable shades of shimmering reflections — material and non-existing forms obscure each other — overlap, grow, disappear, renew. Somewhere in the golden ratio's zone, in the alluring prospect under the tiny arch, there is a renowned «starting point» — oh so many coats layered! — but it's just another subject to be discussed. Discovering yourself for yourself is something absolutely fascinating — and I think it can be called simply a desire to be.
This «Being» — a place on notional map existing primarily as a cultural situation, that, on it's turn, consists of traditions, authorities, relevancies and compliances. This map means a feeling of your time and your part in it — let it be an imaginary part. Under certain circumstances this red dot — a place, a pin, a mark — it can really move the mountain.
It's about «self dog philosophy» — I'm working on understanding of global concepts, such as Fidelity, Virtue, Eternity, Future etcetera, and on a reflection of this enormous «volumes» in dog's eyes. Basically, any creature can take the place of this animal, but I confess — dogs find a special response in my soul.
Alina Maksimenko
Secret Lover of the Ukrainian Contemporary Art.
Poor Brecht complained about his grey Germany, saying that in that country alcohol should be given free of charge for those paints. Are we Germans? Look around: Kyiv is so picturesque that it models pictorial vision and pictorial way of life. In Moscow they may run, whereas a real resident of Kyiv should lie near the Dnipro river and contemplate Lavra. And from time to time attend Alina Maksimenko's exhibitions. Those exhibitions simply make people dive in the colours, like in the water. One jump and you swim in pictorial waves. Alina hides everything in the water: paints flow like the Dnipro, the pure canvas breathes and shows through like a reliable stronghold of the river bank. One can breathe in the world of those paintings. Is it possible to breathe in a genetically modified world of some contemporary art projects? It is a rhetorical question.
The world is modified and the art is modified too. However, it is so great that there is such a luxuriant, hyper pictorial and hyper natural (!) Maksimenko's oasis. Exactly luxuriant – eyes follow her long sensual strokes, like the tongue follows lover's body. Alina Maksimenko is a secret lover of the Ukrainian contemporary art. As Maksimenko's cubicles at Art Kyiv fests get emptied completely, one can imagine that at 19-00 socialites go to show off at pinchukartcentres, and at 22-00 they secretly admire Alina Maksimenko's paintings at home.
This also has a flavour of childhood. All of us read books about impressionists in our childhood. Maksimenko overimpressionisted impressionists with her extremely impressionist motifs – «nu», spring gardens, and Croatian sailing boats. Mykola Gluschenko used to depict those Croatian sailing boats. If you compare them with Maksimenko's ones – she is his daughter. However, knowing Mykola – she would not be! They would paint side by side...
Alina makes paintings in her house near Kyiv nonstop. Small and tender woman makes two-meter canvases within one day. Mykola Gluschenko called it «ecstasy of creativity». Charles Saatchi says: «Paining is coming back». She quickly sells her installations to local contemporary art centres and brings paintings from all over the world.
It is interesting to see that our Maksimenko has also recently been moving somehow from Paris to London. She paints harder and more fragmentarily. It is not a beautiful picture any more; it is a breath of the world. Look at her spring garden – couple of years ago she would have given free swing to do something with the colourful cupboard! Now we can only feel a breath, just a few brush strokes, as though they belong to an ancient Chinese master. Almost black and white doggies at the last Art Kyiv belong to the same mixed London and Chinese breed. Even her famous ballet dancers are not beautiful pictures about the ballet anymore, but they are just some kind of disorder, Dionysius riot, and the spirit of dance itself.
Taking into account that she is only thirty plus, it is very interesting to see where she will be brought. What is important is that she is being brought. She paints instead of inventing concepts. «There are a lot of thyrsus carriers, but very few Bacchuses», Greeks used to say.
Besides, we are not in Greece, we are in Kyiv. Chestnuts are in blossom again, the night comes to Kyiv, Dnipro waves beat against the embankment, great Maksimenko's lilacs above the grand piano, and elegant British setters underneath, and nu, and nu, and nu take out breath away.
Oleksiy Tytarenko
Simply beauty
Painting like a living creature is an equation with one unknown. Lighted with a dark spark, simple and understandable inorganic elements, combined in an inconceivable way, obtain the ability to live, feel, and think. A flat weave of threads covered with a mix of ground clays, oil, lacquers, and solvents turns into a precious amber trap, where lives a moment snatched from the time flow, a vibrant space, and the emotions, desires, and feelings are stored. Pierre Bonaire called painting «adventures of the optical nerve». Adventures always mean admirable events, and admiration with a miracle of being seems to be the most prominent characteristics of an artist. Interest in life and all its manifestations from joyful to tragic conditions the phenomenon of the real art, when a piece of art becomes a bridge for communication to help meeting of a viewer and the gaze of the world from inside the painting. While moving along the way of individual predilections an artist has the ability to see the entire spectrum of the surrounding world through his or her own perception and transmit it.
Among the ocean of aesthetic possibilities and probabilities Alina Maksimenko's own vision realises the stable quantity of patterns. In its integrity they seem to create a mosaics portrait of a beautiful island, where mysterious women live, ships wait at the coast, and the rays of light play on the colour surfaces of exquisite landscapes. Though every picture can be almost physically perceived in its powerful implementation, it makes no sense to try to identify the precise geographical longitude and latitude of the location or specific passport details. It is rather the personification of certain conditions and moods, which become material on the picture.
A naked body in the present cultural practice seems to have frozen dead in Procrustean bed between brutal documentary description and almost medical exploitation of social and gender schemes. That is why it is really striking to see how the remained narrow path for manoeuvre turns into a full-blooded symphony with a bright salutatory power under the brush of the Ukrainian artist.
By its nature this power does not require aggressive self-establishment. In painting self-sufficiency of the life beauty acquires the features of a symbolic image, which reveals itself as a graceful gesture, tactile enjoyment from the facture, colour implementation, or the chosen subject for depiction. That is probably why the external plot action and deeds on Alina's pictures make room for the internal dialogue of feelings. Its presence can be also felt in both still lives and landscapes. In them the emotions acquire aloof and mediate character, however they do not sound less expressive and clear. Thick slurred strikes reinforce luminescence of the glazed lining, and the expressive character of the springy and confident pattern add the refined completeness to the masses of colours. This synthesis is a visual metaphor of the internal concentration, which goes through figures and objects and harmonises the luxuriance of the body with the light of the soul. In fact the technical aspect should not be singled out, as it is an integral part or rather the logical consequence of the personal perception of the world and the artist's position referring to the world. The process of creation reduces the distance between the starting impulse and the finished work at the most. It is targeted at retaining the purity of the effect and freshness, which does not allow the stylistic techniques turning into a usual standard. The feeling of the «single breath» with which the pictures are made is the reality that, at the same time, requires clarifications or possibly explanations. Like the brilliant music improvisation, which is grounded on the daily exercises that the public does not know, this «breath» is prepared with piles of sketches and drawings, and insistent searches. The phenomenon of freshness of the first impression and at the same time further growth of the mastery in the works descends from the individuality of the artist.
Alina Maksimenko considers the art to be the way of learning, and those are her pictures that contain the code that shows the objective and attitude to this journey. It is evident that like the movement to the horizon the determined purpose cannot be implemented fully, and then the process itself may become the purpose. Anything may turn into the source of inspiration – from the sparkles of the dark green glass and an effective hat to the surface of the sea, or from the spontaneous animal grace and colour combinations to the scent of the air after the rain. It is a wonderful gift to be able to perceive the surrounding world in such context. Taking into account that we obtain 80% of the information by seeing it is a precious present of the artist to see joy of the life in every moment, and she generously shares it with everyone.
Andrey Gyrenko, art critic
Swan lake
The corps de ballet got drunk. Somewhere under the gridirons, behind the opera curtains, between the gloomy and hangover morning and the evening fever before the show there it was — a little creature — wandering, watching, drawing something really seriously. Now the show starts, and here it is — soaring among the lights. Feels like the Lloyd Webber's creation — a ghost appearing in the opera. But everybody is alive. Still. However, the life, soaked with the rehearsal sweat, has gained some intrigue.
Maurice Bejart had danced Zigfrid 139 times, and after that he staged his own Swan Lake, and it was not the 140th time of moving along the worn out stage, it was a giant a leap into the puzzling space between the life, desire, death.
The little creature has opened the «Swan Lake» exhibition. But wait, is it really the «Swan Lake» our mothers used to take us for to the theatres? Was this particular «Lake» performed, when a Party General Secretary died? Where are the honest stage sketches, where's the heavy everyday ballet duty? Where is the clinking brass of the best performance of the best ballet on Earth?
This is another «Swan Lake» — chimerical, horrible, tempting and beautiful. If the Ghost of the Opera could really draw, he would create something like this.
The little creature followed Bejart's leap into the puzzling space between the life, desire and death. «A human being is an inconsistent and metaphysical creature», Berdyayev said. The little creature has made something like that, something metaphysical.
All the corps de ballet will come to the exhibition, headed by the primas, starlets, producers, assistants. Everyday makeup is on, layer by layer, and everything you see is the image in the mirror. By some miracle the little creature has depicted what is behind the mirror. This great Bejart's leap.
Critics write about Alina Maksimenko, that she is a rising star of the young Ukrainian art. Quirky galleries shove each other to grab a piece of her fabulous beauty. You can frame any of her works and place it in a New Ukrainian house, and it will turn into Versailles. Alina is able to create chic and glamour like no one else.
And what's from now on? Look — shadows of small swans dance against the unbearable blue space somewhere at the edge of life and death. Life is just a haze, death is unbearable in its beauty. «There are only two things in life – sex and death», Mathew Born used to say, another Swan Lake's commentator.
Alina Maksimenko has stepped on the unexpected path, she came out from the sweet space of the chic commercial painting to the illusive and insecure space of sex-death-life-desire contemporary art. It may bring her either a lot of money or nothing. Currently Alina is like a stalker. She fastens the rope to the swing and throws it into the illusive space. Her husband Vasyl Tatarskiy has also joined her in the action: he took a video with real live swans on a lake and put a metaphysical object made of a bent pipe in the centre of the exposition. He even seemed to go crazy: one of the best Ukrainian sculptors, who could produce ordered and well-paid monuments like all those Cossacks on horses — what is he doing among all this metaphysics and contemporary art objects?
I thought about all of this for over two months. Bang-bang-bang tiny swans jingle – this is the dance on the verge of life and death, this is shabby beauty, this is the leap into the unknown.
What will happen in the space of the project? You'll look at the fainting painting and the dance of little swans. The live swans will splash on the screen nearby, and the tuning metaphoric pipe will be installed next to them. Your head will go dizzy, and the reality will double and triple itself. Finally, you'll be able to see new dimensions, which you normally do not see, running from A to B every morning, all along the way looking on the tried painting and the trusty sculpture.
New Maksimenko-Tatarsky are the searchers of new dimensions. People like that either perish after loosing their way in the haze, or become rich and famous.
Little Swan Titarenko
Magazine Art Ukraine 2008
Rolling sky
Apocalypse. After fresco of Theophanes the Greek «Angel, who is rolling up the sky»
Nothing starts from nowhere. And the point of the beginning is at the same time the point of an end. Reality is somewhere in the middle. «Angel, who is rolling up the sky» – is not a canonical icon, a bit out of line, - as well as out of time, irrational, which is situated at the edge of sensitivity. Innovatory note, that was founded by its' apocalyptic sound, allows to make this icon a benchmark, and to create such an interpretation.
Theophanes the Greek (about 1337 – after 1405) – Byzantine artist, one of the most prominent artists of Middle-Age icon painting. In the Kyiv Rus his mastery was appreciated very much, also people called him a philosopher. Theophanes the Greek founded in Moscow his own school, among his students also was Andrey Rublev.
Description
Object 'Angel, who is rolling up the sky' consists of two parts:
1. Polyptych (numerous paintings) with images of sky on it. The sky is of life-asserting blue colour, and is 'collapsing' into one point.
2. Object (concrete mixer) while working should be mixing the 'sky' colour (paint).
The lower part of polyptych is taken off the stretcher and is rolled up into a bunch, which means that the sky is in the phase, when it's moving to another physical dimension.
Supposed size of the object – 5*3*2 meters.
The story of one disappearance (or mystification of presence)
Erudite person and philosopher Nicolas Flamel (1330-1418), according to the legend, is the only person, who succeeded in preparing the philosopher’s stone, which can turn quicksilver into gold and grant immortality to its’ owner. The secret itself he found in some peculiarly decorated book in unknown language, which he had seen for the first time in his dream. The gravestone of Flamel can be seen in Museum of the Middle Ages in Paris – sun, key and closed book are carved on the tombstone. Nicolas Flamel has disappeared, and nobody can say for sure in which state he is now – death or life.
The “letter of explanation” (text of it is given below) that I found, is a proof of Disappearance, which happened in “our” space of time, and which is as a result a mystification of mystification, or an illusion of illusiveness, or, even better – a substitution of imitation. Because you know, we can’t say that this Disappearance (or Escape) is really possible – it’s rather kind of joke.
«Letter of explanation»
«I don’t have a clear plan of escape (if it’s possible at all) – but it could have consisted of knots of connected between each other days and events – random and situational – which would have been alternated with phone books and calls, wall-notes, bills and promises. I hope either to climb or to descend with help of these knots – depends on my luck».
From the private correspondence
Nice luster. But way too heavy.
Venedict Yerofeyev «Moscow-Petushki».
«Dear friend —
This is a dedication to all the small and big provincial towns with all of their ceremonies, pretensions and habits, in which the Splendid Luster in the main theatre on the main square was, is and will be the center of the Universe.
This is an anthem of Thy provinciality. Ecstatic hands — like an alley of sycamores on the first line, like a penetrated tin can — all those joyful sobs of the exalted microphones — this delight, naive and sincere as the camera flashes.
This is a hymn to Our absurdity — this garland of lusters — ridiculous, lurid, obtained from the city philharmonics and the houses of culture…»
From the private correspondence.
The horizon
Once I encountered a photo, dated 1944, from Montelimar, France, which reached me quite strongly. It is about the campaign «L’epuration sauvage», which stands for detection and massacre of women, suspected in connections with the Nazis. I was getting back to this photo several times – and it is surprising, how historical memory can withdraw us from the reality, – as if it would lead us on the other side of the horizon. It is surprising, what an immense distance lies between the history itself and the memory about it! The events with different antiquity seem to be equidistant. And as soon the eyes get used to the darkness, one can notice the movement of the time in this gap.
Apple garden that one had seen through the coals of dry branches and the «apple-hills» under feet. The garden as the flow of time. The time transforms usual forms, changes them beyond recognition. It is intangible – we can recognize its presence in changes of the attributes of something close, familiar and beloved. Until that edge when the form is still recognizable, regardless of numerous changes. Life is so fragile: on the photo apples seem to be out of paper, – covered with white paint, they were lying on my windowsill for a long time, they were losing their form, changing – and I was memorizing those changes taking place.
Wax has its' own language, which combines smell, colour and «filling» structure. Painting the light, defining its borders with the wax stripes by rubbing the surface seems to be the only correct option. The world is intangible and elusive, but it amazingly coincides with the «body» and «warmness» of the wax. The picture on objects is splitting into layers; it is like disintegrating in light; the form is being transferred from real factual to the abstract space. The eye of the spectator sees the light, which was «cut» in stripes, – the surface that was widely shaded with wax, – behind which the picture is being formed.
The Field
There is reflection on the concept of «native» land, on getting used to a place and its history, which may seem relative, similar to a chalk drawing. You can wipe off this picture and replace it with a different history and purpose. The land, as something constant, but temporary at the same time, and the sky – as something permanent, something that is not dependent on a place of birth, that accompanies us regardless of where we are. Land and sky, described by different languages, but combined in one space, - create my version of the familiar landscape – fields, stretching to the horizon.
"Prepared piano"
««Piano in Progress» is an art endeavor that aims to create a space for an organic coexistence of sound, object and the art practices of one instrument: the piano. The image of the piano is viewed here not only as an acoustic instrument carrying the entire history of music from the 17th century, but also as an artifact which has practically absorbed the entirety of most resent culture, from the early avan-garde to the conseptualist strategies of our day».
Vitaly Patsyukov
The steps
I wanted to bring back to life the feeling of presence of those people, whose steps have been kept in the treads of my house for more than hundred years. The project consists of five objects (boxes) with double-sided pictures of stairwells. Nearby there are several lights, which are connected to motion detectors that react to the steps of the visitor: the light turns on, – it falls on the boxes, – and finally «covers» the treads. Afterwards the light turns off till the next visitor appears.
Orchestra pit
From the last balcony of the opera house an orchestra pit looks like an abstract composition of lines, shadows and light spots. It twinkles, shimmers and breathes — it lights up with intermission and fades away with the bell for beginning of the act. The eye follows the movement, which reproduces the track of the lens — from defocusing to concentration. Approaching the orchestra pit gives an understanding of its structure, organization, rhythm and interaction. It charms on its own, like a performance — the characters appear and disappear, take their places according to strict hierarchy, — and as soon as everything comes to a standstill — music comes like a miracle.
Ferris wheel
Work is based on family archive: on photo of my mother and father wedding ceremony. I was led by idea of ideal word with its absolute harmony, — how it can be seen in a small village in 1970. There is a world that I can’t reach, it does not exist anymore, — I can only imagine it and then find and guess those features in my parents' faces.
Projection of the wedding photo is being streamed on four moving mirrors. As a result we can see on the walls moving reflections with fragments of faces, joining and separating each other. It seems that the world is moving, under human logic, it is making unpredictable compositions, using human faces and fates, — composition, which stays quite far from the impression at the beginning.
Time loop
While catching the time to the touch I am enlacing three storylines:
1. Negatives that had yet been printed on glass – remains of some Kiev photo studio, which ceased to exist a long time ago. This story from the past remains completely fictional and not connected with a certain feeling or memories for me. Those found images belong much more to the general historical memory than to “my” family album. This uncertainty, which I accept with gratitude, enhances the feeling of time distance.
2. The portraits, painted by myself in resonance with the negatives – they show faces of people, my familiar and beloved ones. I am watching them after having already jumped over the time distance that is sufficient in order to turn myself to a suspended spectator. The effects of worn spots, breakageand gaps, usual for old pictures, serve as evidence of “antiqueness” of my discovery, its‘remoteness in time.
3. This is the space, where the action takes place and which I need in order to catch the details of the occurrence – up to the altitude feeling and echo. The Rialto market, with its thousand-year-old range and saturation, is impregnated with human steps and voices. It is theatrical and vociferous. Here, like at the stage, I am placing “my” own story.
It starts and finishes at Vaporetto – the wharf that has met and seen off so many people that its‘own memory resembles a timeline that turns each event, which was real at some point of time, to its‘ own reflection.
Titles
«Titles are kind of willing to relate to the construction of an existing image - alternate, reproduce themselves in details, which they are able to imagine. They take on the images of the environment, like insects or plants mimic the coloring of the surrounding, like an information field consists of signs and symbols.
The previous story is ended with titles and the new one is preceded by them. A story, after passing its culmination point and denouement, leaves the viewer with an opportunity to get lost in conjectures, reread the plot with the inner voice and clear the space for a point or a pause in the chain of events. The answer lies somewhere beyond the borders of the frame, behind the lines that have lost their informative value and can’t be a subject to reading any more».
