ART.UA

31st Year of Independence of Ukrainian Art

On September 13, Red Carpet Art Award will host a vernissage for Ukrainian artists still being held in Ukraine at the Schlumberger Art Floor. The curator, Kristina Gruzynskaya, has invited both young and widely established Ukrainian artists to release their works for an art auction. The proceeds of the auction, led by ARTCARE, will benefit Caritas Vienna - Help for Ukraine. The artists themselves will not be present at the vernissage, as they are staying either in Ukraine or Poland or the Netherlands.

31 years ago Ukraine have gained independence and all these years continued its formation as a state striving for European integration, acquiring its own self-identification with its individual socio-cultural guidelines. This exhibition is not dedicated to the topic of the War and all subsequent events, it does not serve as a call for help, although the country needs it, and not as a call for struggle, although Ukrainian people live in it, and not for weapons, although they are needed. As the great German philosopher Theodor Adorno wrote: “Writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.” But in the case of war in Ukraine, the time for expression has not yet come. Ukrainian contemporary art only postulates its willingness to integrate into the European discourse and not as “candidate” for this status, but as a full- fledged participant of it. The most important now is the perception of “Ukrainian art” not through the prism of the War, but through its culture and values.

Palyanytsya - паляниця [pɐljɐˈnɪt͡sjɐ] is a traditional Ukrainian bread - has a special meaning for the Ukrainians: it is a food, a magic remedy and a symbol. It saves people from starvation and connects them with culture, tradition and even religion. Export of grain - the main ingredient of bread - from Ukraine is also one of the main issues related to the war, as in recent years Ukraine was the fourth largest exporter of grain in the world. Moreover, this word has become a linguistic identifier of the control of the occupiers in the war. The fact is that Russians cannot pronounce this word correctly. It seems to be no coincidence that bread of all things - a symbol of sharing and nourishment - is used as a distinguishing mark. Through the bread artwork, Zhanna Kadyrova tells the story of many Ukrainians at this historical and tragic moment. After the invasion of the Russians on February 24th 2022, Kadyrova left her studio and apartment in Kiev and moved to a village 30 km from the Hungarian border. Here the project Palyanitsya was created from local stones.

Red Carpet Art Award is honored to support Ukrainian artists in organizing this exhibition. All exhibited artists live day by day in fear and uncertainty for their homeland. In times like these it is important to show solidarity and support the struggle for democracy - through art.

ARTISTS BIOs
Alexander Vereshchak - 1971/Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine - Based in Kiev
Alexander Vereshchak is working with painting and media art. He raises the themes of the fixation of everyday life, which are usually eludes from our attention and creates images with a minimalistic and dynamic form. Alexander is participant of the International Video Art Biennale VideoZone (Israel, 2002). His artworks were exhibited in the Institute of Visual Arts (Wisconsin, 2002).

Zhanna Kadyrova - 1981/Brovary, Ukraine - Based in Kiev and Uzhgorod, Ukraine
Zhanna Kadyrova became famous for her artworks made from the concrete and construction tiles. This year, the Palyanitsa project was presented at the 59th Venice Biennale 2022. With the project Second Hand she was shown as part of the main exhibition of the 58th Venice Biennale: “May you live in interesting times”, curated by Ralph Rugoff. Last year, her artwork from the Second-hand project was also selected for a prestigious show at the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris. Kadyrovas works were also shown in the Ukrainian pavilion at the 55th and 56th Venice Biennale.

Alexandra Kadzevich - 1992/Odesa - Currently based in Amsderdam, Netherlands
The main subject of Alexandra Kadzevich’s practice is painting. Having received a classical art education, she consistently turns to painting techniques and tries out various materials to explore this medium. Her work now focuses on the critique of reality and nature through visual forms, she uses art as a tool to explore the social and even spatial conditions of society; This series, filled with images and memories, through which the environment, which is gradually being emptied, is “seen”. Based on her own experience and how this definition changes for her, she explores a sphere of the current history of family and home, responding to the need to create a new inner structure that changes our sense of reality and awakens our curiosity for truth.

Alena Naumenko - 1981/Kiev,Ukraine - Currently based in Ustka, Poland
Alena Naumenko is a master of “painting” and like no one else combines perfect technical skills with contemporary context. The uniqueness of Alena’s works is the use of magnets on a canvas, and what is important, this Know-How is patented. Alena’s uncertainty served as a prerequisite for the using such technique. In 2007, while she has being a postgraduate student at the Academy of Arts, Alena had painted a landscape and hesitated about the appropriateness of human figures in it. “I didn’t want to paint the picture, to overload it. I wanted people to be on it and not being at the same time. In search of a solution to this problem, the idea to place the silhouettes on a magnetic basis had arisen.

Vladimir Sai - 1977/Kiev, Ukraine - Based in Kiev
Vladimir Sai is consistent in his artistic researches of the image of old age, aesthetic impression of the texture of the skin, look, and physicality. The conceptual integrity contrasts particularly with the variability of materials, techniques and media that the artist uses: graphics, video, plastic bag sculpture, chicken skin, oil paint and, of course, ceramics.

Marina Talutto - 1982/Kiev, Ukraine - Currently based in Ustka, Poland
In the artworks Marina Talyutto’s uses the collage technique. A whole composition is created from different pieces from various magazines and mixed with text. At the moment, a person trusts more what one sees with its own eyes, and not what one hears or reads in the media. Therefore, the entertainment industry, which is actually a realm of desire, is filled with many conscious objects that could be found in the simple consumption of mass media products, or the temptation of images that are imposed by advertising.

Olesya Trofimenko - 1982/ village of Vilcha, Polisky district, Ukraine - Based in Kiev
Olesya Trofimenko works in ”mixed media” technique, the uniqueness of her artworks is the combination of painting with embroidery. She notes that she uses embroidery in paintings as a pixel that can be touched to feel the work. This year, as part of the haute couture week in Paris, Olesya became a guest artist for the Dior show. She was invited to this collaboration on the collection by the creative director of Dior, Maria Grazia Curie. The walls of the Musée Rodin in Paris, where the show had taken place, were adorned with huge embroidered panels of Olesya, and the embroidery that distinguishes the collections of Marie Grazia Curie inspired Olesya to create Tree of Life, which became the theme of the show, and on the same time is inspired by traditional Ukrainian embroidery. (Ukrainian embroidery is a national symbol of our country, our pride and a true work of art.)