The Research Platform of the PinchukArtCentre presents a group exhibition, “Red Book: Soviet Art in Lviv in the 80s and 90s,” and a solo show, “Perspektyvna” by Lesia Khomenko. With the aim to generate a living archive of Ukrainian contemporary art from the early 1980s to present, the Research Platform visualizes the results of its work through a regular exhibition practice.
“Red Book: Soviet Art in Lviv in the 80s and 90s” is focused on the Soviet art of 1980s Lviv and the visual practices of the 1990s that have been neglected within the institutional domain for a long time and covered by academic works only partly.
Stanislav Silantiev, one of the exhibition’s curators: “The internal opposition between artistic metropoles and groups of authors contributed to an expectable localization of the artistic process, which turned fast into a collective reluctance to write one “extended history” of the Ukrainian contemporary art.”
This exhibition is one of the first large studies exploring the artistic life of Lviv in 1980s and 1990s. There, the dynamic late Soviet-era culture of the 1980s acquired features of an “anti-civilisation,” and starting in the second half of the 1990s, the role of the artist was devaluated to the point of full dissolution of the author’s identity in the chaos of the new market economy.
The show presents works by 1980s and 1990s Lviv-based artists part of which recurred to an inner existential or physical emigration following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Participating artists: Boris Berger, Stas Horskyi, Halyna Zhehulska, Oleksandr Zamkovskyi, Oleksii Iutin, Mykola Kumanovskyi, Illia Levin, Iryna Nirod, Ihor Podolchak, Platon Silvestrov, Rostyslav Silvestrov, Iurii Sokolov, Volodymyr Surmach, Bronislav Tutelman, Mykola Filatov, Ivan Frank, Mykhailo Frantsuzov, Ihor Shuliev, Iurii Shcherbatenko, Myroslav Iahoda, Myroslav Iaremak and Serhiy Yakunin.
Invited curators: Stanislav Silantiev and Halyna Khorunzha, founders of the “First Jean Jaures Proletarian Reserve” curatorial group.
Exhibition Design - Oleksandr Burlaka.
PAC-UA presents Lesia Khomenko’s solo exhibition, “Perspektyvna”, which focuses on the point of view and perspective distortions it engenders. In this case, the point of view is defined by the artist’s studio on the street formerly known as Perspektyvna (Perspective) Street (Kyiv), and it is brought to the institution and into the public space.
In this work, Khomenko transposes the observation point from private into public (which means political) field, from periphery to the centre, and she delegates properties of a subject to an object. By continuing to reflect on and challenge the powers of painting - the primary medium she has been working with during her whole practice – Khomenko elaborates this time on the impossibility to see without distortions.
PAC-UA is a special program line to present new produced works of Ukrainian artists embedded in the context of the Research Platform, aiming to research ongoing artistic processes within the country and support strong and long-term collaboration between the PinchukArtCentre and the artists. Since its launch in 2011, the exhibitions by Vasyl Tsagolov, Arsen Savadov, Oleksandr Roytburd, Iliya Chichkan, Mykola Matsenko, Pavlo Makov, Zhanna Kadyrova, Alexey Salmanov, Sergiy Bratkov, Zinaїda Lihacheva, Sasha Kurmaz and Anna Zvyagintseva were showcased at the PAC-UA.
Invited curator: Ksenia Malykh.
Lesia Khomenko was born in 1980 in Kyiv, Ukraine. She graduated from the National academy of fine arts and architecture in 2004. In 2004, she c-founded and participated in R.E.P. group, and since 2008, she has been part of the Hudrada curatorial group. Her works were on show as part of solo and group exhibitions, including the main project in the first Kyiv Biennale of Contemporary Art, Arsenale 2012; the main project of the Kyiv Biennale 2015 “School of Kyiv”; the National Art Museum of Ukraine, Kyiv; MUMOK, Vienna; White Box Gallery, New-York; Zacheta gallery, Warsaw. In 2005 and 2006, she took part in the contemporary art residency at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy National University, and in 2008, together with R.E.P. group, she took part in the residency at LIA (Leipzig International Art program), Leipzig , Germany. In 2009, 2011 and 2013 she was a finalist in the PinchukArtCentre Prize and the Future Generations Art Prize, Kyiv Ukraine, and the Kazimir Malevych Artist Award (2012, 2016), Kyiv. She lives and works in Kyiv, Ukraine. Since 2015, she has been teaching the contemporary art course at KAMA (Kyiv Media Art Academy).
Research Platform was launched by the PinchukArtCentre in 2016. It is an open platform for thinking, research and discourse that aims to generate a living archive of Ukrainian Art from the early 80ties till present. Accessible to all, the research platform is a pioneering project to preserve, catalogue and reconsider historical information that is crucial for critical reflection on Ukrainian identity today and tomorrow.
The exhibition practice of the Research Platform develops and displays exhibitions drawn from the research activities and “PAC-UA” – investment in new production of young artists.
