Under the patronage of the Embassy of France in Ukraine
As a part of the 10th anniversary festival French Spring in Ukraine
In collaboration with the French Institute in Ukraine

Pavlo Gudimov's Ya Gallery Art Center presents Memoria project as a part of a programMEMORANDUM

The opening will take place in Ya Gallery Art Center in Kyiv, at 49B Khoryva Str., on April 8th, at 19.00. The project will run until April 22.

Participants: Emmanuelle Castellan / Kirill Ukolov / Oleg Grishchenko

Curated by Pavlo Gudimov
Commissar - Oleksander Kamenets

Memoria (Latin - memory) is the first project of the two year program MEMORANDUM organized by Ya Gallery Art Center and Oleksandr Kamenets Foundation with support of the Embassy of France in Ukraine. Its object is to compare the artistic situations in Ukraine and France and to enhance the artistic exchange between the countries. The results of resident work of three strong young artist is presented in the project.

They are Ukrainian artist Oleg Gryshchenko and artists from Toulouse Emmanuelle Castellan and Kirill Ukolov (Russian native) - both studied in Toulouse Art Academy and were selected by the city's cultural center "Espace Croix Baragnon" to participate in the program. The result of almost two-week artists' residence in Kyiv is Memoria - Ya Gallery and "Espace Croix Baragnon" second mutual project after last year's exhibition "Figure Vivace".

The starting point of the project is the hundredth anniversary of the Black Square by Kazimir Malevich (1878 - 1935), who was born in Kyiv. The history of the painting's creation, its impact on the contemporaneity, on the development of art and its perception - these were the main themes for all the three artists. A lot has changed in art in the past hundred years.

A transformation of perspective on the past occurred. And the medium spectrum that today is used by artists allows to have a fresh look at art shocks of the past and uncover the phenomenon of new memory.

My paintings are always set off by images that disappear, are erased, sometimes leaving only a few scattered elements that “float” in the painting space. My works often speak of the oblivion, errors and selectivity of my memory.

For Kyiv project Memoria, I didn't know how to organize work in such a shot period. The first thing that I saw upon my arrival to the airport was money, bills. The second was Kyiv architecture. I chose these themes as foundations for my project, because they are new to me and because they can say a lot about the culture of every country, in this case – Ukraine.

Emmanuelle Castellan

Series Bases is museum podiums, cubes to exhibit classical sculpture. Painter tape is applied on the floor around the cube. The sculpture on the cube is also taped. The cube has just been painted.

Like the Suprematists who rejected the heritage of classical culture to assert geometric foundation for any form, this work shifts the focus of the viewer's perception from the work to the pedestal on which it is presented. Suprematist artists' pursuits reflected the XX century great shocks and attempts to radically review the very foundations of social order and even human nature. At the same time, their search led to emergence of design that subjects aesthetics to solving practical problems. The technical element – the podium – is the central element of sculptures in the Bases series.

When the paint dries tape will be removed. What will be underneath?

Kirill Ukolov

The project Grain Memory exists in several dimensions, but in all its aspects it appeals to working with cultural memory – lost, renewed, just acquired.

From a formal perspective, it is a project-dialogue between the graphic matrix of printing that carries certain information for replication, while simultaneously existing as a full-fledged artistic object – and sheets that are printed from it, adopting a part of its memory. Sheets that become autonomous memory carriers and possess a potential to transfer information to other objects.

On the other hand, this project is a kind of a dedication to people who created our cultural memory,

became parts of the print matrix, but for some artificial reasons their art hasn't “sprouted” in our country to the fullest. In this respect, taking prints from the graphical forms is working with memory that exists in us as grains that have a potential to grow, blossom and give fruit. On a condition of us working on it – on a condition of creating our own memory.

Oleg Gryshchenko