Dnipropetrovsk. Ya Gallery Art Center
In Our Paradise
11.12.2014 – 20.01.2015
The exhibition "In our paradise" is a conceptual project which main idea consists in a new reading of Kobzar's poetry through an artistic dialog with works of contemporary art. In paintings, drawings, photographs and video contemporary artists create their own "Picturesque Ukraine", begun by Shevchenko.
Curated by Halyna Sklyarenko, Valeriy Saharuk
Oleksandr Babak / Anna Voitenko / Pavlo Makov/ Victor Marushchenko / Anna Mironova / Stanislav Perfetsky / Szilvashi Tiberiy / Anatol Stepanenko/ Ruslan Tremba / with the participation of Oleksandr Korol
It has already been the third century as we continue to read "Kobzar". Many of his verses are so widely quoted that sometimes we forget whom they belong to. They became folk, came into our consciousness, determined special features of our language, culture and memory. However, just now when Taras Shevchenko's anniversary concurred with deep social convulsions in our society as Ukraine is so painfully and tensely choosing her way during a new historical break, - the great poet's lines gain their special actuality. Nowadays messages in them demand to be re-read. Their prophetical wisdom, intensity of problems, significant figurativeness need to be comprehend. Once Ivan Dziuba noticed: "We understand Shevchenko as much as we understand ourselves".
The exhibition "In our paradise" is a conceptual project which main idea consists in a new reading of Kobzar's poetry through an artistic dialog with works of contemporary art. In paintings, drawings, photographs and video contemporary artists create their own "Picturesque Ukraine", begun by Shevchenko. Attentively peering into surrounding world, questioning traditional dimensions of a national myth, tragic catastrophes of existence, they continue and develop great Shevchenko's themes - about nature and humans, struggle for a freedom, dreams about the future. Shevchenko's lines describe artistic space, define its dynamics and tension. And here new experience enters Poet's circles of thoughts - tough, often paradoxical and ambiguous, where echoes of his images clearly appear in modern Ukraine's dramas - those "eternal Ukrainian questions" that the country and everyone of us must answer to.
Participants of the exhibition are both well-known and young Ukrainian artists of various creative streams. Their vision of the world and understanding of art are emotional and analytical, critical and polysemantic, but always individual and concerned. Their art is open to reflections and discussions. Their works are full of sharpness of personal perception, they continue Shevchenko's tradition where "the history of my life is a part of my motherland's history".
Halyna Sklyarenko