Art about deep feelings of Ukrainians during the war will be shown in Neustadt
01.08.2023 2023-11-08 14:45Art about deep feelings of Ukrainians during the war will be shown in Neustadt
Art about deep feelings of Ukrainians during the war will be shown in Neustadt
admin 
The exhibition “Clouds will melt” will be held from 18 August to 3 September at the Villa Böhm Museum, built in the Wilhelmine style on the slopes of the picturesque Palatinate Forest. With the support of the Odesa Museum of Contemporary Art, the exhibition will feature works by Ukrainian artists AntiGonna, Alyona Tokovenko, Kateryna Kopeykina and Olena Dombrovska.
According to curator Andriy Siguntsov, the exhibition is imbued with a reflection on the topic of war, a shocking and unique experience for every Ukrainian.
“From now on, we all have ‘before the war’ in common, which means not only dates, but also a different world that existed before the full-scale invasion. There is also a common “at the beginning of the war” – in stories about strong emotions and important decisions. Finally, everyone today dreams of the cherished “after the victory”, realising that the world will never be the same again. But between all these “before” and “after”, everyone has their own story of experience, because the war is not only on the frontline, the struggle is constantly going on inside each of us,” says the curator.
The main guide of the “Clouds Will Melt” project will be the feeling of “clarity of the obscure”, the presence in life of something incomprehensible to the mind, opaque, dark and unusual. It is the boundary between an aggressive and militant belief in common sense and a “realistic” worldview of the omnipotence of reason, faith in technical and social progress, and immersion in the depths of the subconscious. Human weaknesses, flaws and speculations. Human strength, myriad pleasures and reality. Despite the disorder, certain senselessness and animal horror, meaning emerges among those involved in it, without explanation or full understanding, but lasting a lifetime.
CURATOR AND PARTICIPANTS OF THE EXHIBITION:
Andriy Siguntsov is a Ukrainian artist and curator. Since 2010, he has collaborated with Mystetskyi Arsenal, Ivan Honchar Museum, Kyiv History Museum, Kyiv National Gallery, Brave Factory Festival, and Lavra Gallery. In 2017-2018, he was the programme director of the international festival Kyiv Art Week, co-curator of the EarthMate Ecology Festival (2020) and the Festival of Contemporary Culture “On Time” (2022-2023). He has organised and participated in projects in France, Italy, Germany, Lithuania and other European countries. Currently, he is working as a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Odesa and is engaged in independent artistic and curatorial practice.
AntiGonna is an independent filmmaker, artist and actress. She explores the issues of sexual fears, perversions and taboos, violence and death. She works in the genres of video art, music video, virtual reality and photography. Since March 2022, he has been based in Paris.
Katia Kopeykina is an artist who was born in Donetsk and later moved to Kharkiv, then to Odesa, then to Kyiv, where she started tattooing and painting. In 2020, she joined the Tsap-Tsarap collective led by Slava Kononov, which was rethinking contemporary tattooing, philosophy and art. She is currently at the artistic residency “How Dare You” in Milan.
Aliona Tokovenko is an artist born in Odesa who works with such media as painting, installation, graphics, video and fashion design. She has worked with the themes of violence and trauma. After the full-scale invasion, it seemed to Tokovenko that all the horrors expressed in her work began to come true. Because of this, the artist thought she would no longer be able to paint her bloody pictures, until she realised how important this topic is today.
Olena Dombrovska is an artist who was born in Odesa, studied at the M. Grekov Art School and the National Academy of Arts, majoring in painting. Since 2009, she has been actively participating in exhibitions and projects in Ukraine and abroad. Her works are a play of light and reflexes in the environment in which the work and the viewer interact, as well as reflections on the possibilities of the aesthetic influence of the primordial element of language – the line.
INFORMATION ABOUT THE EXHIBITION AND CONTACTS:
“Clouds Will Melt” is organised with the support of the Museum of Odesa Modern Art, a private museum that preserves, researches and exhibits contemporary art. The institution has existed since 2008, acting as a platform for the presentation of not only regional, but also national and international contemporary cultural product. The museum’s collection includes works by Odesa nonconformist artists of the second half of the twentieth century, as well as Odesa artists of different movements and generations.
