From «absolute metaphor of Divinity» to the synonym of "nouveau riche" and thoughtless accumulation, gold has always followed a thorny path and never seemed to be full of clarity. The new "Mr. Gold" project, curated by Pavlo Gudimov tells us about the love and hate to the shining and precious. According to Pavlo Gudimov, Mr. Gold is a real person, not a movie character, and he lives in every one of us. In the exposition of Mr. Gold's imaginary collection there is even a bust of the hero made-to-order by Sadan. What can be more desirable than your own image made of gold?

Working on the project, Pavlo Gudimov was trying to trace the displaying of gold as a material and as a theme in the different epochs and kinds of Ukrainian art. This discovery

extends from Scythian treasures to the sacred art and numismatics, but the first exposition of the exhibition will only be showing works by contemporary artist's, which nevertheless, consciously imitate or critically comment on gold in classical art.

The exhibition begins with "Wings" by Tiberiy Szilvashi, because this project was the starting point of the immersion in the "golden" theme. In 2008 the artist was discovering time and space through the creation of a large scale installation in the Ya Gallery art centre. Tiberiy's huge golden "Wings" refer to the Tabor light like one of the key features of sacred art. But being removed and cut into squared pieces they became an ordinary secular painting, the subject of commodity-money relations, the effectiveness of which is highlighted by the golden surface. This work highlights in the best possible way the problem of gold reserves, and therefore our attitudes to it.

Works by other authors are also supporting Tiberiy's statement. For example Artem Volokitin in his "Golden Intersection" uses bold gold as a background for compositions created with bodies of a young couple. Abstract body geometry here meets the purity of the sacred.

Andriy Sagaidakovsky in his turn gives weight to the figure of the artist coloring in gold an old jacket, which has been absorbing dust in his workshop for years. Ruslan Tremba with his traditional phallus central manner speaks ironically of the term "golden", depicting "rain" of the corresponding color. Aleksander Kadnikov documents the social behavior of the typical Ukrainian "Golden person". Andriy Dudchenko goes even farther, bravely rethinking church symbols and creating the absolute icon - instead of defining the aureole paints the entire surface of the board over with the potal.

An exposition of such a collection is not an easy thing, but diversity here is clearly in the favor of the depicted subject, because Mr. Gold is not ashamed to confess his earnest admiration of gold.

Vlada Ralko, Volodymyr Budnikov, 2011