calendario eventi  :: 

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15/2/2013

Four exhibitions

Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev

Collection Platform 4
Emotion and Technology

PinchukArtCentre continues the presentation of its collection showing Collection Platform 4: Emotion and Technology. The group exhibition includes 17 artists offering a selective view on two central and sometimes opposed notions in our lives: emotion and technology as they constantly define our perceptions of the world.

The exhibition brings together works which evoke, express and unveil emotions with art pieces dealing with technology as a subject or a tool. The show offers a view on artistic practices focusing on the one hand on how those two notions come together, and on the other hand on the tension and opposition within them.

The exhibition presents the works by Ukrainian and international artists including Sergiy Bratkov, Ilya Chichkan, Gregory Crewdson, Olafur Eliasson, Andreas Gursky, Damien Hirst, Carsten Höller, Martin Kobe, Jeff Koons, Oleg Kulik, Julie Mehretu, Richard Prince, Marc Quinn, Thomas Ruff, Jürgen Teller, Xavier Veilhan and Carsten Nicolai.

The exhibition including works which have never been shown in Ukraine such as Moving image (1994–2005) by Carsten Höller, Untitled (2007) by Martin Kobe, 5th Season (Evacuation of Bewdley, Worcestershire) and 5th Season (The Lost Rivers of London) (2007) by Marc Quinn.

Series Kiev (2007) by Jürgen Teller that was created for the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 organised by the PinchukArtCentre, is shown in Kyiv for the first time.

Changing twice a year, since February 2011 the collection platform is highlighting leading artists of our time together with upcoming new positions. Featuring central Ukrainian artists as part of the Collection Platform, this program allows a new perspective on contemporary art. It is a dynamic model of interaction between the collection and new workgroups with a focus on their artistic value.

Collection Platform viewing area directly connected to selected works offers the audience a deeper understanding of artists and their works. The idea is to slow down the speed of viewing and, by giving more information, allow the visitors to acquire more knowledge, competence and experience as integral part of the education offensive.

The show located on the 5th floor of the art centre will be on display from February 16, 2013.

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Tony Oursler
Agentic iced etcetera

The PinchukArtCentre (Kyiv, Ukraine) presents the first major solo exhibition by Tony Oursler in Eastern Europe entitled “agentic iced etcetera”. The exhibition combines specially produced new works, including a Ukrainian speaking installation, with some of the most iconic pieces of the artist. Themes within the exhibition include chance in everyday life, endorphin fuelled relationships, and the tendency for magical thinking to name a few. The human face and the way it simultaneously communicates and masks emotions is also a key theme in Oursler’s work.

Eckhard Schneider, General Director of the PinchukArtCentre: “Tony Oursler (born 1957) is one of the pioneers of the genre. For Oursler video is a medium comparable to water in its extreme fluidity, one that had remained imprisoned within television for fifty years. He has not only succeeded in liberating video from the screen, but also in developing it into video sculpture. His works are introspections on the human psyche under the influence of mass media. The majority of the work that will be on show has been created especially for the PinchukArtCentre – a dramatic labyrinth of sensations.”

From his earliest videos and installations, the mutability of human nature has been the central theme of Tony Oursler’s work, fuelled by his fascination with the inner workings of the psyche and belief systems. The resulting sculptures, videos and installations challenge the viewer’s preconceptions of rationality, schizophrenia and culturally constructed notions of good and evil.

Formally, Oursler has developed a wide-ranging use of materials such as resin, glass, fabric, steel and various found objects, which are kaleidoscopically overlaid with projection, light and sound, forming a unique embodiment of his themes. Oursler’s work invites viewers to question their relationship with mass (multi-) media and reaches from an examination of television (and its surrounding structures) to a questioning of the psychological effects of digital communication tools like mobile phones and the Internet.

Projecting moving images onto objects, Oursler moves beyond traditional uses of media such as cinema, television and the computer and creates something akin to “living” sculptures. The scenarios he devises are often full of poetic and humorous performances, incorporating all manner of physical and auditory representations of the human form. The works incorporate a spectrum of voices reflecting numerous performative and literary approaches – florid poetics, interior monologues, tortured fragments or scientific jargon. Viewers are invited to complete the script as they move through the exhibition and confront open-ended, often existential constructs.

Oursler also explores the interaction between sculpture and spectator. He is aiming for a conversational structure in which the object not only speaks but also provokes the viewer’s imagination.

The human face reoccurs as subject in “Caricatures” (since 2002), works in which biomorphic sculptural objects become caricature-like forms literally brought to life by videos of eyes and mouths that take over the unnatural proportions of the sculptural object. These works explore the viewer’s empathic relationship and echo the history of caricature, ranging from early sculptural forms such as the Venus of Willendorf to the ubiquitous smiley face.

The artist’s so-called “micro works” are almost like living embodiments of thought structures. Oursler’s interest in memory, construction and new scientific discoveries and ontological systems form the basis of these wildly imaginative microcosms. Landscape, architecture, found objects and amorphic materials are overlaid with tiny projections which complete the surreal, microscopic world. Elaborately edited looping structures cover these small forms and upturn the relationship with the spectator. Each micro-world is displayed at eye level and mirrors the scale of the human cranium.

On the other hand, the overwhelming scale of “Lock” (2011) semi-forces the viewer into a total, physical experience of image and sound. Viewers are dwarfed by the three enormous characters who make up the work and as they pass through the maze of this projected world, they experience three layers of interlocking characters: the first representing free will and agency; the second representing the status quo and human error; the third representing mathematical symmetry and death. This monumental installation involves key performances by artist/filmmaker Tony Conrad, vocalizations by singer/performer Chanique Rogers, a sound collaboration with Dan Lloyd (Brownell Professor of Philosophy at Trinity College, Hartford) and musical compositions generated from functional MRI (Magnetic Resonating Image) readouts of psychological test subjects. The installation has the appearance of a secretive yet familiar system, loosely divided between the mind, body and environment, in which synchronized images shift to form a colourful game.

Finally, the exhibition features a screening room of music-themed video. The screening includes numerous collaborations, including those with Sonic Youth, Beck, Kim Gordon, Stephen Vitiello and Glenn Branca as well as featuring Oursler’s recently released music/video collaboration with David Bowie.

Tony Oursler graduated from the California Institute of the Arts in 1979 and is currently based in New York. Oursler’s works have been widely exhibited internationally, including solo shows at the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (2012); Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan (2011); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2010); Kunsthaus Bregenz (2009); Kunstforeningen GL Strand, Copenhagen (2006); Musee d’Orsay, Paris (2004) and many more. Group exhibitions include the Museum of Art and Design, New York (2012); Cincinnati Art Museum (2011); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2010); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2010) and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2008). 1 Elizabeth Janus, “Talking Back – A Conversation with Tony Oursler”, in Tony Oursler: Introjection (Williamstown: Williams College Museum of Art, 2010). Unpaginated pdf on the artist’s website, www.tonyoursler.com.

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Jake & Dinos Chapman
Chicken

The PinchukArtCentre (Kyiv, Ukraine) presents the first solo exhibition of Jake & Dinos Chapman in Ukraine titled “Chicken”. At the centre of the exhibition stands the major new installation entitled, The Sum of all Evil (2013) that forms a synthesized reflection upon the central themes such as the Holocaust, violence, and death. Alongside this, the exhibition will include a number of iconic works by the Chapman brothers whose sharp subversive humour and unbridled aggression provokes controversy and questions moral contemporary taboos.

“The Sum of all Evil” produced by the PinchukArtCentre, is a monumental miniature landscape which is composed of four encased dioramas sited on historical events including the discovery in Babi Yar (1941) of the Ukrainian mass grave where the Nazi occupier executed more than 30,000 Jews in just two days. In addition to this, 'The Sum of All Evil' references Art historical paintings including The Apocalypse by Hieronymus Bosch (1450–1516) and several etchings by Francisco de Goya (1746–1828). It is a sequel to Chapmans’ earlier epic nine-part installations, Hell (1999-2000) and Fucking Hell (2008) - their magnum opuses. Composed of a miniature landscape of concentration camps and mass graves in which thousands of hand-painted Nazi and skeletal soldiers commit murder, torture, rape, abuse and mutilation resulting in a fascinating catalogue of human horror. Ironically enough, the apocalyptic work 'Hell' (1999-2000) was destroyed in a fire in 2004 however, the Chapmans responded with the even larger and more ambitious Fucking Hell (2008).

Eckhard Schneider, General Director of the PinchukArtCentre: “Jake and Dinos Chapman's work continually verges on the breaking of taboos. It can be extremely offensive in its use of black humour and subversive jokes, addressing issues of violence, war, the Holocaust, genetic manipulation and death in all their inhumanity. It seems they are always ultimately concerned with generating a moral panic. The selection of work in this case fulfils such claims in a very specific manner, in that they will be premiering a new work, Sum of All Evil, which references the Babi Yar massacres in Kiev.”

Among the other key works of the exhibition is the painted bronze sculpture, Sex I (2003) which alludes more directly to the 'Great Deeds Against the Dead', an original Goya etching from the Disasters of War series. In 1994, the Chapmans had made an eponymous life-size fibreglass reconstruction of this etching. Sex I presents the same scene a number of weeks later: the bodies of the martyrs are in an advanced state of decomposition and covered with hand-painted bronze casts of toy flies and worms. The hardness and naturalism of this scene is ruptured, in typical Chapman fashion, by the clown’s nose, devil horns and ears that the severed head has been given. Although the sculpture depicts death and decay, it carries the title Sex, a reference to the interrelationship between Eros and Thanatos (Love and Death).

The Chapman’s fascination with the work of the Spanish artist is a persistent theme throughout the brothers’ oeuvre. 'From the Blackened Beyond' (2011) is one entire set of Goya 'Disaster of War' etchings that the Chapman's in their own words have 'reworked and improved'.

Also on show are bronze sculptures from The Chapman Family Collection, based on rare ethnographic masks and fetish objects. Here, the Chapmans de-sanctify traditional tribal images by merging their authentic character with the mass-branding and symbols of the global fast food chain, McDonald’s. The telephone numbers of regional McDonald’s restaurants have become the catalogue numbers itemising each of the works in the Collection. McDonald’s can be seen as a symbol of globalization, commercialization and the cultivation of fast food. In terms of this presentation, the Chapman Family Collection parodies typical Western ethnographic museums and deepens the criticism of the underlying hypocrisy associated with a century of globalization.

Finally, the work Shitrospective offers an overview of the Chapman's sculptural work until 2009. Cardboard models are offered not as truthful renditions but recreations that provide a primitive, childlike and brutal impression of the originals. By playfully changing the scale, the rough-cut models of their iconic masterpieces retain all of the horror, but intensify the humorous and playful aspects of the works.

Jake Chapman was born in 1966 in Cheltenham and Dinos Chapman in 1962 in London. They live and work in London. They have exhibited extensively, including solo shows at the The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (2012); Museo Pino Pascali, Polignano a Mare (2010); Hastings Museum (2009); kestnergesellschaft, Hanover (2008); Tate Britain, London (2007); Tate Liverpool (2006); Kunsthaus Bregenz (2005); Museum Kunst Palast Dusseldorf (2003); Modern Art Oxford (2003) and the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2000); upcoming in November 2013 will be a solo show at the Rudolfinum, Prague. Group exhibitions include the 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2011); the 17th Sydney Biennale (2010); Meadows Museum, Dallas (2010); Rude Britannia, Tate Britain (2010); Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (2010); Hareng Saur: Ensor and Contemporary Art, S.M.A.K, Ghent (2010); the National Centre of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2009); Kunstverein Hamburg (2009); British Museum, London (2009); Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille (2008); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2008); ICA, London (2008); Annenberg Courtyard, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2007); Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki (2006) and the Turner Prize exhibition, Tate Britain (2003).

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16 February 2013 - 17 March 2013
Alexey Salmanov
Forest means cheaper
Solo Exhibition in the context of РАС-UA

The PinchukArtCentre presents the 8th PAC-UA project – an exhibition by Ukrainian artist Alexey Salmanov. “Forest Means Cheaper” is a new work by Salmanov especially created for the PinchukArtCentre. It is based on his recent performance in Manhattan, New York City when the artist went to the very heart of America on a mission, based on the history and mythology of the island.

Alexey Salmanov about his project at the PinchukArtCentre: “Initially I wanted to speak about the presence of China on the geopolitical arena. During realization, the project transformed into a completely different story. Its prologue has to do with the history of Manhattan, which was acquired by Europeans from the Indians for a handful of necklaces that cost around 24 dollars. So I arrived in New York with a commercial proposal to buy this huge island once again for 25 monetary units, this time not American, but Chinese, 25 Yuans. I produced a poster saying “Will Buy Manhattan for 25 Yuans” and walked with it during the day through the busiest Manhattan streets.”

This provocative gesture turned for the artist into a very intimate experience of introspection in the public space of the big city. This was balanced by the followed collaborative actions of symbolic acquiring of Manhattan from a New Yorker and giving it back to the Indians in the person of a local Native American.

Bjorn Geldhof, Deputy Artistic Director of the PinchukArtCentre: “After being awarded a Special Prize of the PinchukArtCentre Prize 2009, we continue to support the work of Alexey Salmanov. The art centre supported the performance which he has made in New York and is now premiering the work which grew out of this within the context of PAC-UA. The exhibition and this platform show our continuous commitment to the Ukrainian artist and especially to the young generation.”

The installation “Forest Means Cheaper” presented at the 4th floor of the PinchukArtCentre unfolds in two chapters, two rooms and two types of physical space. A concentrated archive of the project constitutes the first room. Photographic and video documentation of performance, objects from the scene and symbolic items are presented in a visual plain that invite viewer to make a reading effort. The video projection in the second room suggests contemplation rather than direct action and refers to the cyclicity of time and space, articulated by the artist in the project.

The project was realized with the participation of Lee Manansala and Dylan Carusona; photography: Artur Bondar, video: Bogdana Smirnova.

Reoccurring ritualism of Salmanov’s work is celebrated in the artist’s performance on the opening day of February 16, 2013, at 15:00. Later on Alexey Salmanov and Maria Lanko, participant of the PinchukArtCentre’s Curatorial Platform, will lead the PAC-UA Talk dedicated to “Forest Means Cheaper” project. The event will take place in the PAC-UA space on the
4th floor of the art centre.

PAC-UA is a special program line to present new produced works of Ukrainian artists embedded in the context of the Collection Platform, aiming to research ongoing artistic processes within the country and support strong and long-term collaboration between the PinchukArtCentre and the artists. With its project, PinchukArtCentre presents a dynamic and flexible program for Ukrainian artists that is showcased in the PAC-UA space for a period of one month. Since its launch in 2011, the exhibitions by Vasyl Tsagolov, Arsen Savadov, Oleksandr Roytburd, Iliya Chichkan, Mykola Matsenko, Pavlo Makov, and Zhanna Kadyrova were showcased at the PAC-UA.

Alexey Salmanov received no formal artistic training, but has been engaged in photographic practice for a long time. He works in various media ranging from photography to performance and installation. Salmanov won a Special Prize of the PinchukArtCentre Prize 2009 and was nominee of the PinchukArtCentre Prize 2011. He completed an internship at Olafur Eliasson’s studio in Berlin (2009) and exhibited at Sevastopol Art Museum (2012), Kunstvlaai Festival of Independents, Amsterdam (2012) and Supermarkt ArtFair, Stockholm (2011), among others.

Image: Tony Oursler, Caricatures, 2003–2005. Video projection, foam, resin, fiberglass, acrylic, sound. Courtesy the Artist

Press Office
Dennis Kazvan - Communications Director tel.: +38 (044) 494/11/48 e-mail: press@pinchukartcentre.org

Opening day of February 16, 2013, at 15:00

PinchukArtCentre
1/3-2, "А" Block, Velyka Vasylkivska / Baseyna vul. Kyiv, Ukraine
Opening hours:
Tuesday through Sunday from 12:00 until 21:00
Closed Monday
Admission is Free

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