May 30 – June 13, 2014
Another Vacant Space, Biesentalerstraße 16
Berlin, Germany
Curated by Maria Lanko and Lizaveta German
Partners:
Artcult foundation
Perevorot studio
Foundation for Cultural Initiatives ArtHuss
Centre for Urban History of East Central Europe (Lviv)
Detenpyla Gallery (Lviv)
Pereoblik project (Lviv)
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What if only flies saw the show, does it mean that it actually happened?, wondered the artist and poet Lubomyr Tymkiv while speaking about a garage gallery that he has run for around 2 years in the backyard of his house in the outskirts of Lviv.
In the situation of an institutional wasteland in the non-metropolitan regions of Ukraine this type of artistic thinking has created a number of out-of-system territories or production, representation and circulation of art. Territories that may be mapped through collecting occasionally found stuff and giving them a status of an art material. Or through living an asocial life marked by artistic presence on the Web or in sent-out paper letters. Or through an everyday living lodging directly in the gallery space or wearing webcam with on-line broadcast during 2 months nonstop.
These places, stories, moments substitute for conventional system of art, yet not in the sense of an opposition to it or institutional critique. These territories are hardly identifiable but are continuously created in-between the bodies, studios, galleries, conversations, actions and memories. Permeating the daily life of artists and communities, they seem to seep through history because of its immaterial nature.
The exhibition focuses on artistic practices and self-organized galleries in the Western Ukraine since late 1980s until present day. Underground spaces and practices have emerged since 1980s throughout the country mapping the previously non-existing domain of contemporary art. Yet in Kiev these artistic initiatives were gradually replaced by a more or less divaricate art infrastructure, while in places like Lviv or Uzhhorod artistic communities until today have unwillingly maintained the functions of the art system being producers, distributors, foundators, spectators and commentators for their own art practices.
This phenomenon of here-and-nowhere underground spaces resonates with the ephemeral nature of the many artistic practices in Western Ukraine.These practices are not about "producing" complete projects or pieces - but are stretched in time and space, manifesting themselves in continuous observations, storing personal items, images and texts, or simply in a variety of routine everyday work which acquires a sense of artistic programme.
The exhibition consists of the two complementary parts: a documentary installation of archival materials and artifacts related to the informal spaces of Lviv and Uzhhorod, and a selection of art works. These parts are linked through the spatial installation ‘Open Gallery’ - a new step in the long-term project of "Open Group" collective.
Being a part of the Open Archive project the exhibition explores how the nature of given, newly created or imagined spaces/territories shapes artistic decisions (and vice versa) today. But also how the unwritten stories of the past are re-interpreted when acquiring new “walls” and “ceilings” around them. The AVS space becomes the first temporary venue (home?) of this venue-less performative history.
Time is one fuck-up and space is another one.
– saying of unidentified author often quoted
by some young artists of Western Ukraine
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Artists:
Gabriel Buletsa (Uzhhorod)
Open Group (Lviv-Mukachevo-Kiev)
Lubomyr Tymkiv (Lviv)
Yuri Sokolov (Lviv)
Andriy Stegura (Uzhhorod)
Curators:
Maria Lanko, Lizaveta German (Kiev)
Galleries presented:
Decima (Lviv)
Korydor gallery and Temporary Exhibitions project (Uzhhorod)
Garage of Lubomyr Tymkiv (Lviv)
Garage of Lubomyr Sikach (Lviv)
Detenpyla (Lviv)
Yefremova26 (Lviv)
89 Days of Winter project (Lviv)
OPEN ARCHIVE is an instrument of an ongoing research of artistic practices launched by curators Lizaveta German and Maria Lanko in collaboration with the artists of Open Group. The online platform openarchive.com.ua reveals methodology of its authors’ curatorial approach as well as presents its intermediary result – the artists’ profiles made up of СVs, selected artworks, texts etc. The profiles can be viewed independently or as elements of a social tree in this decentralized growing network.
The geography of the archive is not limited to Western Ukraine.
Open Archive is a living process without any predictable or desirable destination.
