Burned by Reality. Kirill Protsenko.
Today, as our knowledge of the world becomes increasingly conditional, it is important for the artist to compensate for the overly abstract, speculative nature of the new reality by creating their own visual mythology that organically complements the worldview.
The new project by the well-known Kyiv artist Kirill Protsenko, “Burned Reality,” is a continuation of his experiments with the traditionally infantile technique of burning, this time integrated into a painterly context. Kirill Protsenko’s objects, created by selectively crossbreeding two such different and sometimes conflicting technologies, form a peculiar aesthetic framework of a genre hybrid. The reduced to two tones burnt drawing coexists with the painterly texture; the contrast and multidimensionality of the objects create a superficial visual effect that screens deeply hidden ontological and aesthetic experiences, turning fragments of reality into illustration.
The project title “Burned Reality” has visual power, associated with a desert, a scorched plain, a monotonous road to Nowhere. The video work “IRRITANTS” (co-authored with Ilya Chichkan) is voiced by a fragment of the famous text “Lectures on Nothing” by composer John Cage. Cage’s text, repeated many times, swings the negative meaning of Nothing, turning emptiness into fullness, replacing absence with presence. The dubious beauty of muscular female bodies becomes a mesmerizing meditative spectacle.
The tamed and ordered element of fire nevertheless gives a certain anarchic charm to Protsenko’s pyrography and creates the illusion of naturalness. The archaic suggestion of burnt wood involuntarily immerses one in the exhilarating and exciting atmosphere of a fire. At the same time, the campy, ironic component of the exhibition, represented by Protsenko’s traditionally charming figure of Cheburashka, somewhat softens the seriousness of “Burned Reality,” leaving space for idle conversations.
Comment type: Published comment
Author: ?
Sources: Burned by Reality. Kirill Protsenko. [Electronic resource] // UniArt. – 2009. – Access mode to the resource: http://www.uniart.com.ua/artexhib/95
