Ukrainian on-line artmagazine KRAM, some translations

Index has initiated an collaboration with web based artmagazine KRAM published in Kyiv, Ukraine (http://kram.in.ua/). The page will be updated regularly with new material:
http://www.indexfoundation.se/scripts/Page.asp?id=378

KRAM TEXTS: USELESS READING



Introduction
USELESS READING

The KrAM Project - for the international audience

When the proposal was made in summer 2008 to present KrAM (Criticism of Actual Art) internationally and in particular to the audience of INDEX (the Swedish Contemporary Foundation, Stockholm) all the founders of KrAM began to think… Mainly they wondered if the project would be understood, given that it makes sense only in a Ukrainian context and is intended for the Ukrainian reader. It seems that it would be unsuitable for the foreign art expert… But in the end we decided to take a risk and provide a small selection of texts for “beyond Ukraine” using the somewhat surprising name “Useless Reading.” At first glance it’s provocative and resembles more an artistic action. However, by using it, we are stressing the local nature of our project…Perhaps a similar idea is concealed in the Ukrainian name of the project. In Ukrainian “kram” means goods, wares, merchandise. Though in the local context, it’s not that works of art aren’t completely unnecessary, at present they’re not understood; nobody knows “what’s it for?” and “what do you make of this?” Simply speaking, there exists almost no hermeneutic tradition of art messages that require not some kind of ideological perception, but more than anything else – interpretation…Although we don’t claim to have completely filled this niche…

Thus, we are fully aware that KrAM will also be incomprehensible for the international audience. This is not only due to the fact that the overall situation with art in Ukraine is rather difficult to comprehend for a foreigner. We’ll try to provide a few facts.

Fact #1 – Since Ukraine’s independence, in other words starting in 1991, official Soviet art (social realism) that was once considered progressive and modern, lots its importance. Back then it mainly fulfilled the role of a “screen” to allow one to work in art professionally and had few truly devoted adherents. Nevertheless, it customary to call the art that replaced it, that which is created by its contemporaries “here and now” – “contemporary art” rather than using the customary Ukrainian words “suchasne mystetstvo.” The fascination with pronouncing foreign words likely creates a realm of something unusual, and practically everyone who finds their way into it can discover some secret meaning or will automatically join the global context.

Fact #2 - At the National Academy of Fine Arts, the course on history of Ukrainian art ends with the 1960s while the course on history of world art ends with the 2000s. For many Ukrainian students, Kandinsky and Malevich are still considered innovative artists (and by no means classics).

Fact #3 – There is no Museum of Contemporary Art in Ukraine. And most importantly, there is no institution that would take on the work of creating an archive of processes taking place in contemporary art in our country.

Fact #4 – At the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’s” Center for Contemporary Art (CCA), which was founded by George Soros in Kyiv and has held exhibits of works by Bill Viola, Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys, it’s never impossible to meeting someone from the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine. But the most widespread reaction by “workers from the arts” from the University to the work of CCA is plain incomprehension and non-acceptance.

Fact #5 – One can count upwards of ten critics in the country, but even they write expert articles rather sporadically given that absence of requests. Therefore, the press release is mainly all that’s ever written about an art event.

It was in this context that the electronic publication KrAM appeared. Its mission is to stimulate art criticism in Ukraine.

Several facts about KrAM:
KrAM is the private initiative of six people, each of whom has some connection to art.

The founding members of KrAM post their own commentaries, essays and critiques about actual art or invite other authors to do so.

KrAM has no editorial board. The texts that appear on the site are the initiative of every founding member, who takes on the responsibility for posting materials.

KrAM receives no outside financial support. It functions as a closed club. The electronic publication is paid for by the founding members’ membership dues.


The club’s founding members:

Volodymyr Babyuk, art consumer
Kateryna Botanova, art manager
Yulia Vaganova, art manager
Alevtina Kakhidze, artist
Taras Lyuty, philosopher
Olesya Ostrovska, curator

Eastern Unorthodox: Artists in search of a post-Soviet Ukrainian reality

Barter. 2007, SOSka Group, Digital Print, 18 x 24 in.

By Jason Foumberg

Ukraine has been in a constant state of transition since declaring its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Seventeen years of sovereignty have been marked by periods of deep poverty for many and robust wealth for few, political upheavals and mass protests, and a thrust toward modernization. As Chicago contains the largest population of ethnic Ukrainians in the United States, all eyes are on the homeland as a new batch of corrupt politicians threatens to set a course for turbulence. An exhibition opening September 12, “New Print Politik: Post-Soviet Politics and Contemporary Art,” at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, depicts the situation from the artist’s viewpoint. Alongside the Ukrainians, the Russian, Slovakian and Cuban perspectives are considered in the exhibition, as all were previously under the rule of, or dependent on, the U.S.S.R.

Alina Kopycja. Personal Space

August 18, at the morning most rush-hours Ukrainian artist Alina Kopycja traveled by different urban transport in Kyiv. She was in long old-fashioned dress with huge crinoline. That dress guaranteed one meter of personal space to her – something impossible otherwise in transport jam. Action was connected with issues of private space, respect to individual personality and especially to woman's personality. Each is dangerously threaten in contemporary Ukraine. During the uncontrolled economical and social changes country becomes 'consumption paradise' with enormous differentiation between rich and poor. Woman's body (as in traditional patriarchal society) becomes commodity, the only tool for life success for women. Engaged in survival activities ordinary people don't have time to analyze situation and all the more to demand changes. Girl in strange dress was one minute extraordinary flash in usual surroundings that provoked feelings of discomfort and irregularity – strange and unclear feelings, unconscious displeasure rather than clear understanding of what is going wrong.

More photos and video: http://eidosfund.org/personal_space/

Why Alevtina Kakhidze's "Shopping" is impossible at the PinchukArtCenter?

Eighteen years ago the Iron Curtain fell and intellectuals from both sides turned their looks, full of hope, on one another. Both sides were looking for liberation and both were deeply disappointed – desirable Freedom was absent in the plentiful West as well as in the ascetic East.

Consumerism was one of the most attractive Western features for people from the Eastern block. Ability to consume was dreamed of by generations of Soviet citizens who were deprived of access to the wide choice of consumer goods because of priority of heavy industry. Ordinary Marlboro cigarettes or Levi's jeans were objects of desire, signs of privilege and luxury. Ideology failed on the level of everyday life – instead of building a "better future" people were fighting for personal benefits, establishing "blat" connections to get some better clothing or food. That's why we couldn't respond to the high expectations of Marxists intellectuals from Western universities – we wanted exactly what they were fighting against. And finally we got it – in the wild forms of primary accumulation of capital.

The rest of the story was quite banal. When one gets money, one wants to represent his or her own status. So we have record sales of prestige cars, enormous prices for realty and various boutiques and restaurants instead of old soviet shops on Kyiv's streets. But what could the wealthy do, when they bought everything possible to buy? There are a few ways of entering into the new bourgeoisie of the world – own contemporary art collections and charity. Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk combined both and leaved behind Roman Abramovich with his posh football club. PinchukArtCenter, established in Kyiv two years ago, pretends to be one of the major representational spaces for contemporary art in Eastern Europe. "Reflection" project presented there in October 2007 collected works of the most known (and the most expensive) artists, including Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. It was a grandiose example of art shopping – the highest form of contemporary Ukrainian obsession with capitalism.
Local art sphere responded to that tendency immediately. When Soros stopped giving grants for critical art, artists turned to the so-called "actual art" – mostly oil paintings of original form and plot, good enough for collecting (what Pinchuk and others are doing) but not good to think about.

Alevtina Kakhidze's "Shopping" stands aside this context. It concludes her experience of conscious dealing with consumerism as a social phenomenon (presented modestly in small "Ya gallery", May 2008). Alevtina talks about her impressions (impressions of a person from Soviet province) of Western consumer culture. During her two-years study in Maastricht, Netherlands she found herself in some kind of fairy-tale of abundance and sufficiency. Like Alice in Wonderland, she didn't know exactly what to do with all these things and how to understand her new desires. Her first project there was entitled "I don't need it, I want it". Alevtina presented drawings of different goods multiplied on a copy machine and arranged into piles. She decided not to buy but to draw everything what she liked. Goods – all possible variations of unnecessary things were just the beginning. Consumer instinct goes further – and Alevtina draws antique furniture from auctions and even art work – appropriating it all in that way. This logic is quite understandable for a person with post-soviet background. Long ago in my childhood small girls had a funny custom – when they saw something attractive they would put their fists on chins and say "I order it". It signified their symbolic right of ownership and guaranteed that they would have it in the future.

Ukrainian "I don't need it, I want it" goes further. More goods – body, relationships, emotions become objects of construction and consumption. The very fact of possession of luxury "something" becomes more important than enjoyment or even health. Artist pointed that elegantly. She arranged the gallery space like a shop – installed multiplied copies of drawings (stating that a copy is always new and attractive, like goods in showcases), T-shirts and skirts with texts about consumption. Every single thing was for sale: black-and-white copies of sketches of goods had prices equal to prices of depicted objects. So, image of Luis Vuitton bag costs as an original bag, and drawing of Jeff Koons work – as his masterpiece. This play with copies and prices provoked questions about value in consumer society in general and value of art in particular. Kakhidze's "Shopping" has a critical value – that's why it's priceless in Ukrainian context.

Photos from “Shopping”: http://dev.yagallery.com.ua/artexhib/64/

Text of my presentation with photos

Tamara Zlobina

Presentation: Visual trauma of Ukrainian nationalism

First of all I should say that I'm not an art-critic or curator. By education and by profession I'm cultural studies researcher, so my point of view on art processes could be slightly different from yours.

Today I'm going to talk about two main topics – local social and political situation that influence arts and artistic response to that situation. By artistic response I understand not just critical art, but all artistic activities present in contemporary Ukrainian context.

Further: http://zumka.livejournal.com/261100.html

I was here