Naomi Uman. Ukrainian Time Machine

http://www.hallwalls.org/media-arts/4783.html


Former HARP artist Naomi Uman returns to Hallwalls from Eastern Europe. Hoping to experience what it is like to be an immigrant, the filmmaker moved to the Ukraine shortly after her 2005 residency—a reverse journey taken by her great-grandparents in 1906. She will show four 16mm films from the Ukrainian Time Machine series that combine personal, experimental and non-fiction approaches to capturing life in the town of Uman, where people live as it were 100 years ago.

Kalendar
11 minutes, color, silent, sixteen millimeter film, 2008
This ten minute, silent, color film which depicts the meaning of the months of the year in the Ukrainian language. Each month is presented and followed with a title card which gives the name of the month in Ukrainian Cyrillic, the meaning of that name in italics and the name of the month in English. This film speaks to the concept of language acquisition as you are presented the word for the month, but you are not given a transliteration. If you are unable to read the letters, you can not know how the word will sound. This film, in its silence, represents the door that can be opened when a language is learned, but that remains closed until that time.


Unnamed Film
55 minutes, color, 16 millimeter film, 2008
This project is the result of the filmmaker's attempt to investigate issues of immigration by becoming an immigrant herself. Naomi Uman returned to the land her great grandparents left in 1906. She moved to Ukraine, without speaking the language or knowing anyone. She moved near the city of Uman, to a small rural village where people live as they did 100 years ago.

On This Day
5 minutes, color, sound, 16 millimeter film, 2008
This film tells the true story of one day in the life of the filmmaker.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Naomi Uman is a visual artist. She works in a variety of media and formats. Her work addresses themes of work, geography, immigration, language and love. She has recently completed a series of films, all shot in a rural Ukrainian village, near the city of Uman. She has worked in the United States, Mexico and is now living in Ukraine where, accompanied by her small dog, continues making films, planting vegetables and flowers and making paintings of animals.

contemporary art in museum project

Contemporary Histories: The 2009 International Competition for Curatorship in Ukraine
The Kharkiv-based artists’ collective SOSka proposed an exhibition titled “A New History” for the Kharkiv Art Museum. It included works by artists from Ukraine, Russia, Slovakia, Romania and Sweden; some pieces had been shown previously in international exhibitions such as Manifesta 7 and Art Moscow. Adopting a structure similar to curator Ekaterina Degot’s exhibition “Thinking Realism” in the State Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow (2007), the curators paired contemporary artworks (mostly video) with works from the permanent collection in order to raise questions and introduce the possibility for new readings. In Kharkiv, the contemporary art objects were juxtaposed with historical paintings and sculptures, creating a visual and aural dissonance that was perceived by museum administrators as a conflict, rather than as a dialogue as the curators had intended.

“A New History” was scheduled for five days, but it was abruptly closed by order of the museum director, Valentina Myzgina, the day after the opening. In an official letter of explanation sent to the EIDOS foundation president two weeks later, Myzgina cited several reasons for shutting down the exhibition. These included concerns that video artworks were installed so close to museum paintings that they interfered with viewing the paintings. Some video works broadcast sound into the gallery rather than through headphones, and they contained offensive language. David Ter-Oganyan’s installation “Girl in Underwear,” which was not discussed and approved during initial negotiations between the curators and museum staff, consisted of articles of clothing scattered in the middle of a corridor. Judging this to be a disruption of museum circulation and violation of fire safety norms, the director personally dismantled the piece at the exhibition opening.

not very interesting, but informative

A Short Guide to Contemporary Art in Ukraine ("Short Guide Series")

Articles

Larissa Babij (Kyiv)

Thursday, 23 July 2009 17:19

ARTMargins begins a series of concise introductions to the developing art scenes of East-Central Europe. Last May an exhibition titled Pohlyady (Views) that highlighted the confluence of art and politics was organized by HudRada (Arts Council) at the Center for Contemporary Art in Kyiv. HudRada is a group of Ukrainian artists, architects, translators and political activists; many members of the Ukrainian contemporary art community participate in its internet-based discourse. HudRada has wide-ranging aims, which include self-education through communication as well as creating exhibitions and other consciousness-raising events. Without the hierarchical management of a single curator, the members of HudRada collaborated on the development of Pohlyady mostly through email correspondence. Poster-size text excerpts from their discussions hung on the gallery walls amongst the artworks. Lectures, roundtables and guided tours enhanced the visitors’ experience, adding an interpretive dimension and creating a setting for those interested in Ukrainian contemporary art to meet and exchange ideas. By encouraging critical discourse, the group is working to slowly transform the Ukrainian art scene.

Quiet artist

For "Ukrainian Magazine" (Український журнал.) - 2009. - № 4. - P. 52-53.

The article is about Alevtina Kakhidze, Ukrainian artist who got Malevich Art Prize last year. I analize the strategy of very prize, why it was given to Alevtina and conceptualize her main projects.

More in Ukrainian + discussion: http://zumka.livejournal.com/275423.html

More about Alevtina in English:
http://zumka.blogspot.com/2008/07/why-alevtina-kakhidzes-shopping-is.html

Translations from her KRAM (critique of actual art) on-line project: http://www.indexfoundation.se/upload/pdf_uselessreading.pdf

Place and form

Tamara Zlobina for PROstory.net.ua

I wrote about Lada Nakonechna "Place" action in Kyiv CCA at March 3.
As for me, artist didn't fulfil well her interesting idea about value of work/artistic work and interconnections between work of art and it's context.

more in Ukrainian: http://prostory.net.ua/ua/art/7-art/197-2009-04-15-20-08-40

Females and Ovipositions

http://foggedclarity.com/2009/04/females-and-ovipositions/

Grycja Erde

In this series of oil paintings I examine stereotypes of femininity in contemporary Ukraine. Well known images of Eve, The Virgin Mary, Helen of Troy, and of Kateryna, the heroine of the emblematic Taras Shevchenko’s poem, along with the glamorous “cover stars” serve as role models for the socialization of Ukrainian girls. Women should be nice, spiritual and beautiful. These repressive stereotypes don’t reflect the diversity of choices for women in contemporary society. Real women can be ugly, fat, bald and nevertheless – interesting and charming individuals. As a project, curated by Tamara Zlobina in 2007, “Females and Ovipositions” was exhibited in a few Ukrainian cities (Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Ivano-Frankivsk) and elicited different responses and opinions. The most remarkable of which occurred in the provincial town of Drogobych (Western Ukraine). My exhibition was prohibited by local authorities because of an outrage against public morality and Christianity. Drogobych moralists proved that women in Ukraine can be naked (and almost are on TV and in advertising) – but only if their nudity is aesthetically pleasing.

Naive

For "Ukrainian Magazine" (Український журнал.) - 2009. - № 3. - P. 52-53.

The article is about two project's - REP group's "Patriotism. Art as present" and SOSka's "Dreamers"

Both groups of young artists are quite famous and critically minded. They made really good projects for PinchukArtCenter.
The reaction of public was symptomatic, as for me - very naive. Everyone liked the form of exhibitions. But critical messages about the role and functioning of art in post soviet context (REP) and modern hero – disoriented teenager (SOSka) weren't understood clearly even by critics.

p.s. the message of pictogram picture above (from REP's Patriotism) is: State (flag) finance (purse) and take care (hand+comb) also supervise (hand+camera) art (brushes).

Cafepress says it's ANTI-Obama. I think it's rather PRO

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5142001

Shut up woman! Your day is March 8!

Very good illustration to the popular joke about March 8 from Elena Mirosedina - the artist of Feminism is... project.

Feminist actions on the eve of March 8, Ukraine

March 8 is extremely popular holiday in Ukraine but not as International Woman's Day in it's emancipative and political meaning, but as depoliticized or over-politicized by post-soviet patriarchy Day of Tenderness. The best description to it's real meaning in Ukraine (and all post-soviet countries as well) is popular joke "Silence woman! Your day is March 8!".

1. Preventive action.
To avoid congratulations like "Our dear women! You are so sweet and tender! You are the decoration of our life! In this day - March 8, the day of beauty, spring and tenderness, we wish you to be loved mothers, sisters and wifes!" and so on, Ukrainian feminist activists proposed "forced enlightment" of officials who often reproduce these and other essentialist stereotypes about the role of woman in society. Activists propose to send letter with information about real meaning of the holiday to all possible greetings-maker.
More information in Ukrainian: http://community.livejournal.com/feminism_ua/434002.html.

2. The best feminist March 8 poster contest (in Russian): http://community.livejournal.com/feminism_ua/432350.html

I'm trying to develop Feminism is... project

Feminism is... project was created by activist Tamara Zlobina and artist Elena Mirosedina in Ukraine. It is based on popular series of comics from 90s - Love is..., and consists of 20 "lipstick feminism" pictures about different topics (fun as well as serious). We have just Ukrainian-language blog feminism-is.livejournal.com/ now. So I'm going to do special web page (Ua-En) and dozens of shops on cafepress.com to further dissemination of pics and ideas.

The first one is done - http://www.cafepress.com/feminismis1. It is dedicated to right of choice: "Feminism is... deciding when to give birth".

Would you buy something like this? And what do you think about?

• 
  Feminism is...1 Tote Bag
  $15.99
  
• 
  Feminism is...1 Maternity T-Shirt
  $26.99

Light from inside

For "Ukrainian Magazine" (Український журнал.) - 2009. - № 2. - P. 50.

The article about "And soul and mind and body" project in the Center for Contemporary Art, Kyiv, December 2008.

It was the last project of the Center - CCA in Kyiv was closed.

Curator Jerzhy Onuch selected two very enigmatic artists - Miroslaw Maszlanko (Poland) and Olena Turianska (Ukraine) who work with old and meditative materials (paper and cane) creating compositions of paper cutting multiplied with light and shadows (Turianska) or something like braided walls (Maszlanko). Their works look extremely aesthetical and beautiful but it isn't utilitarian type of beauty. It is rather universal replica about beauty as such. And, of course, it isn't just about beauty...

More in Ukrainian, and photos: http://zumka.livejournal.com/266734.html

I published the article in "Obrazotvorche mystectvo" (Fine Art) 4, 2008

Title: "Graphic Art by Touch"

This is really old-fashioned magazine of National Artists Union. "Old-fashioned" doesn't mean realistic or soc-realism - everything very modern there. But still, my article looks quite strange. The article is about "Book lunch" project realized in February 2008 in the Center for Contemporary Art, Kyiv, by Alevtyna Kakhidze and Kateryna Svirgunenko (organizers, curators). They invited 40 local artists to present "artist's books". So I describe and analyze a little bit this event.

Few photos and the article are accsesible on my Ukrainian-language blog: http://zumka.livejournal.com/266225.html

Market against art. Who will win?

December 29, 2008 GKU Progect group (young Ukrainian artists, more info at http://notforsale.com.ua/page/about/ , in Ukrainian) presented project "Not for Sale" in "Bilshovyk" shopping-moll in Kyiv, one of the biggest shoping-molls in Ukraine. Their intention was to critique consumption sosiety in the temple of consupmtion.

But at December 30, managers of shopping-moll refused to publish names and titles on art-works and decided to use it like ordinary New Year's decoration. They also didn't pay fees to authors and curators, becouse they "don't like art-works and want artists to improve it".

Artists still can't take their works back.

Market showed big teeth! The irony of situation is that "Bilshovyk" (title of shoping-moll) means Bolshevik, communist. The moll was organized in buildings of previous big soviet plant "Bilshovyk" and uses communist symbols enourmosly (like red stars and "shopping Lenin").

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