Fripulya — infinity
No. 41, June 2008
He was always in sight, in crowds on Andriyivskyy and at pompous exhibitions, at rock concerts and with noisy groups of Ivankiv residents on the chilly shores of Kyiv lakes. Fyodor Tetyanych’s performances were watched by millions, and these millions were divided into three categories — the first frowned and used unflattering epithets aloud, the second smiled and shrugged, the third got involved in his performances as participants. Accomplices — this is probably more significant than ordinary companions of famous artists — admirers and buyers, adepts and critics. The last category looked through, trying not to notice Tetyanych.
They feared to criticize him, primarily because even the most seasoned critics lacked criteria to analyze his performances and installations. Tetyanych brought chaos to any exhibition and to the minds of art historians. It must be said, the nineties accustomed conservative Kyiv to the concept of contemporary art and even nurtured several professionals who could interpret the significance of the new term according to its foreign analogues and original sources. But here’s the catch — Tetyanych’s works had no direct foreign prototypes, and therefore did not lend themselves to such interpretations. Although there were analogues. Formally, he could claim the niche occupied in the West by Marcel Duchamp and Jackson Pollock, Jean Tinguely and Sedzo Shimamoto. But in terms of meaning, his experiments were closer to Oles Berdnyk, with whom, by the way, Tetyanych was friends. This is natural — abroad was immeasurably more distant (and alien) for a Soviet artist than the utopian ideas of late socialism. After all, formally Tetyanych was nurtured by that time: he received an academic education and worked as a monumental artist in the most “Soviet” of all possible artist specializations, creating mosaics and panels in Kyiv (for example, on the building of the Artistic Glass Factory or at stops along the fast tram line).
Not in step with everyone (and how else with his limp?) Tetyanych grew out of his time like out of tight adolescent clothes. The contexts through which he passed did not rule him — whether it was the context of dissent (even Shelest “wrapped” his sculpture of a shackled Ukrainian as an anti-Soviet allegory), or the formation of the art market (during Perestroika his works went abroad for considerable money), or the temptations of Big Moscow (where Tetyanych sometimes lived for a long time). Only the Ukrainian context was unconditionally organic for him. Much can be said about this by the epochal, huge canvas “Koshovyi Otaman Sirko” created back in 1966. Under the impression of this work (and communication with the master), the then little-known Ilya Glazunov realized the prospects of epic canvases and tried to use these prospects in his own way. Well, Tetyanych went further.
The actor of art is not a participant in a worldly dispute; his mission is to resolve the conflict by naming and designating it. Thus, in ancient epics, a hero who knows the enemy’s name has power over him. What stands behind the name “limitation” is quite a good, because worthy, enemy. The antithesis of limitation is infinity, boundlessness. In the Ukrainian version, this sounded as “нескінченність”.
By the late 70s, Tetyanych realized that the meaning of his creativity — and therefore of himself, since such things coincide! — should be designated by some concise word-symbol. That symbol became: “Fripulya.” Every symbol exists at the intersection of ultimate abstraction and ultimate concreteness. Thus, Tetyanych in the guise of Fripulya was established in his theory of “нескінченність.” Infinity, apparently, was the synonym of the word “Fripulya.” And a new life began, the fabric of which was a continuous performance, taking place in processions through the city and actions at its reference points, as well as in writing a book and creating artistic artifacts, not only canvases but also mysterious “biotechnospheres.”
And the canvases were sometimes quite unexpected — for example, on a huge piece of lard, more resembling an unfinished hide, Fripulya carved with a chisel the portrait of one of his acquaintances. But the most impressive effect was achieved after a year, when the “models” showed the natural (outside the refrigerator!) transformation of the work. The performance of one viewer — but not because Fripulya avoided crowds. I know this from my own experience, and this experience is almost twenty years old.
In January 1990, at an exhibition in the Chamber of Commerce hall on Lviv Square, among others, Fripulya was exhibited. The monstrous composition of non-suitcase size represented either a time machine or a prototype of a total web: all made of metal, bright ribbons, and trash, it had some movable parts, including the author himself. And in the depth — a book. When, surprised, together with a friend, we climbed deeper into the structure, closer to the book — reading students! — we ourselves became part of the structure. Its author in high heels and a silver cloak walked in circles and wrapped us with something shiny and pompous, maybe barbed wire, maybe New Year’s tinsel. The book seemed interesting. Like life: so unclear that it was not even scary (although the time was something else). Proclaimed students right there, we did not disown it.
And as a result, in the spring streets of Kyiv wandered, dressed in silver cloaks and monstrous bloomers, also in helmets or hats with bells. “Let’s go to the rally!” Squeezing through dense and hostile crowds of demonstrators, we became a living chain between the tribunes and the sea of yellow-blue flags. Foreign correspondents jumped up to us — fortunately, my English allowed me to explain what exactly we wanted to say with this artistic gesture. Remember on Maidan, at the place of the current obelisk with Baba, a large square of trimmed grass next to the wasteland from the demolished Soviet monument? We stood there. Bright against the green background of flower beds, we were afraid and proud to be recognized by our comrades from the People’s Movement, who were probably right there, in the crowd on October Revolution Square, which later became Maidan. Then our carnival was three of us, and, not quite understood even by the protesting democrats, this is how we raised the degree of pathos to “нескінченність.”Link
