Lada Nakonechna. Almost the Same. 2012. Installation (photograph mounted on the wall)

Work description

This work was made specifically for an existing space: the photo wallpaper that covers one of the walls on the second floor of Mystetskyi Arsenal is a photographic copy of that very wall. The main difference between the photographic surface and the original brick wall is its inability to absorb light from a flash or gallery lamp. Instead, the photo wallpaper creates blinding glare, “dazing” the viewer. 

The work also functions as a metaphor in Nakonechna’s institutional critique. Covering the Arsenal’s wall with a near-identical image points to the political context in which an exhibition space operates: the ambition to create a Ukrainian Hermitage, plans to house Viktor Pinchuk’s collection, and the eventual opening of a national complex governed by the Presidential Administration. Nakonechna draws attention to the fact that the institution never truly became a public asset, and so, between its walls and the viewer’s gaze, an “invisible” barrier always risks emerging.