Exhibitions

The PinchukArtCentre presents the third “PAC-UA Re-consideration” project - an exhibition by Kharkiv-based artist Ivan Svitlychnyi who was nominated for the PinchukArtCentre Prize in 2011 and 2013. In his new installation entitled “Subimage” that was especially created for the PinchukArtCentre, Svitlychnyi reconsiders his own artistic practice seen through a variety of influences.

With this work he transforms the whole exhibition space into a curved capsule in which he puts an independent sculpture. Both the sculpture and the curved capsule contain independent sound streams. These sounds are constantly modified, interacting with each other in time and space.

In its entirety the installation develops the idea of an image and sub-image, accumulating confrontations between the inside and the outside, the source and the process, the self and the environment. With this complex work the artist creates a self-portrait seen as a flow of influenced events, places and people.

To achieve this idea, Svitlychnyi conducts a scientific research analyzing those factors that formed him as an artist: his family, his teachers and the environment he lives and works in.

The “family” is represented by his own and his father’s DNA that he submitted to a genetic analysis. The “environment” is composed through a number of important dates and places in and around Kharkiv. In those places he collected bacteriological samples that were analyzed in a lab. Finally, the “teachers” are represented by the study of a single painting, co-authored by his father and Kharkiv-based painter Vladimir Shaposhnikov. Svitlychnyi analyzed the surface, colours and composition of the painting.

The results of every research were transferred into a digital stream that Svitlychnyi used as source material to define all forms and sounds of “Subimage”. The analysis of the painting in combination with the analysis of his father’s DNA and the “dates” defined the ‘skin’ of the sculpture (the latter two have also shaped the architecture of the exhibition space). The sound from the sculpture is composed of the Svitlychnyi’s own DNA and the “places”. The outer sound is drawn from the painting (as the embodiment of ‘teachers’) connecting the artist and environment.

The exhibition is co-curated by Bjorn Geldhof, Deputy Artistic Director of the PinchukArtCentre, and Tatiana Kochubinska, junior curator of the PinchukArtCentre.

The show is open on the 4^th floor in the “PAC-UA” space from 11 September till 5 October, 2014.

“PAC-UA Re-consideration” is a new exhibitions series of the PinchukArtCentre that researches the relations and influences between Ukrainian art scene of today and artistic practices of the past. It discovers the continuity of tradition in the context of interrupted development of Ukrainian art history, showing new works created by new generation of artists inspired by older artistic positions. Since its launch in May 2014, the exhibitions Alevtina Kakhidze and Open Group were presented in the framework of “PAC-UA Re-consideration”.

Ivan Svitlychnyi was born 1988 in Kharkiv, Ukraine, where he currently lives and works. He graduated from the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts in easel painting and monumental sculpture. He is a founder and curator of the art organization 01011101 and curator of the exhibitions of the TEC creative centre in Kharkiv. Svitlychnyi was nominated for the PinchukArtCentre Prize in 2011 and 2013.

In his work, Ivan Svitlychnyi researches sound as sculpture. During the first stages of a production, he experiments with objects and creates the basis for a sculptural sound through their form. Abstract physical sculptures define the travel of sound and the reception of the sound by the viewer. Continuing his research through performances and actions in specific spaces, Svitlychnyi now redefines the possibilities of this process to create sound as a sculptural experience.