Kyiv. Ya Gallery

Human, Artistic

Rostyslav Koterlin

16.01.2019 – 11.02.2019

Exhibition Kyiv Ya Gallery

The human being has been changing the world for centuries believing in the supernatural, superhuman. Material and non-material cultural values that fill and accompany our life have been formed thanks to our imagination and thought, faith and labour, sacrifice and chance. And today, the world's logic is driven dashingly and every time in a more demonstrative way by algorithmic stereotypes. The 'digitality' changes human thinking and behaviour every day. Hardly anybody notices and studies something sporadic and rare — something that is beyond the conventional clichés. More and more people reflexively repeat similar movements, immersing in endless screens and absorbing the technologically articulated typicality and massiveness. A rapid development of underdevelopment is obviously the major tendency these days. But what is truly human in the digital age?

Basic myths were once formed on the basis of exceptional historical events. At present, information messages are incessantly telling us about hundreds of exceptional events. Each of them could become a myth, but it remains a private story, tragic or comic. At the same time, the internet, through the lens of a mixture of artificial and natural, grants everyone the right to a personal myth.

Unbelievable 'times of change.' The world is stable yet different every day. It is changed by the nature and separate individuals rather than nations. There is, of course, no such a thing as national (folk) wisdom or international wisdom. Nations are, in a way, only small potatoes of changes. Experience and knowledge are gained by separate individuals, and only later it may become some sort of 'national wisdom.' The 'international wisdom' became dependent on certain shady 'pack leaders' in 2017. But what exactly do we remember from 2017? There were quite a few good and bad events that year, so what is stamped in our memory? And what can we say about 2018? Everyone may express their own views, but overall it was just another time that the Earth went around the Sun. I am sure that very few people remember that Stephen Hawking passed away in 2018. Has anybody tried to catch on to the intents of his thoughts about Space?

2019 is here and we already find ourselves in the logics of new expectations. So how can we remember anything? Marina Abramović, a performer who is firmly established in the Western art system, teaches people to see the energy in emotions and strange actions, feel the slightest internal vibrations of human creatures. These ideas of meditative East are topical at these cybertimes.

Performance is an energetic action, while painting has the special energy, according to masterful Abramović. And it is true just like the fact that everything is filled with the special energy when it is at its own place.

The nature of 'artistic' is to highlight the mystery, put important things in proper places. Artists sometimes manage to create the connection between the human and the invisible, between the truth of the world and its inexpressible secret.

Several important people whose opinions provided the intellectual perspective for the world have gone to reward for the last couple of years. Someone's significant ideas are thriving right now, someone's oracular voice has been already heard for millenniums, but most people are still lost. Today, the talking heads are leading the whole nations to the 'realm of fame, money and beauty.' They are leading there forgetting that 'life flows both ways' and 'the wind blows whither it likes.'

We should ignore a lot of things in this endless flow of information to stay free. We need to remember, trusting our senses and intuition, that it is because of the 'artistic' that the world is now the way it is and the human probably remains 'human,' although not being in the centre of the Universe anymore.

The 'artistic' not only sets nets, but also protects us from the traps of this world.

Rostyslav Koterlin

Author

Born in 1966. Lives and works in Ivano-Frankivsk.

1998 graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, department of journalism.

Koterlin is a researcher and an analyst of processes that take place in contemporary art; he is also an author of essays and articles about artists of Ivano-Frankivsk. Since 1990 he's an organizer and a participant of almost all contemporary art programs and projects in his city.

Since 1999 he edits and publishes an almanac of contemporary visual art "Kinez Kinzem".

14.09.2022 – 15.10.2022
Exhibition Kyiv Ya Gallery
19.10.2016 – 12.11.2016
Exhibition Kyiv Ya Gallery Art Center
01.07.2015 – 03.08.2015
Exhibition Kyiv Ya Gallery Art Center
25.09.2013 – 14.10.2013
Exhibition Kyiv Ya Gallery Art Center
12.09.2012 – 11.10.2012
Exhibition Kyiv Ya Gallery Art Center
16.02.2011 – 14.03.2011
Exhibition Kyiv Ya Gallery Art Center
24.03.2010 – 12.04.2010
Exhibition Kyiv Ya Gallery Art Center