Bakhmatova, Halyna. Tamerlane to Help the Housewife or…/ArtKavun, from 01.01. 2000

The exhibition of ceramics and graphics by Stas Volyazlovsky, opened in the regional library, will be discussed. Out of breath from the fast walk (we hurried because, according to rumors (which turned out to be mistaken), the exhibition might be dismantled starting next week), we conquer the stairway and – oh, a gift of fate – we meet the author himself, outrageously blue-eyed, with an icon-like face. I don’t know if he was as happy to see us as we were to see him. We were simply burning with impatience to touch, feel, and hold his creations.
Here is the heavy sculpture of Tamerlane. And the author’s comment: “In defiance of those who say that works of art have no practical use, I can note that this little thing is indispensable in kitchen affairs: to bend the eggplants, to weigh down the ring in the pot.” (The characteristic rolling “r” gives a special charm to Stas’s ironic speech).
Maybe this is how it should be, to approach the fact that there are painfully few such exhibitions, that almost nothing sells, and if it does, it’s for mere pennies, with humor and without whining? We listen, and our hands reach out themselves to feel the pleasant weight of ritual vases, figurines of “Family,” “Angel,” such a cheerful angel with a mind of his own and a nose no worse than Mkrtchanovsky’s… This “Angel” is a kind of talisman for Stas.
I can neither draw nor sculpt, but my soul sweetly sings from being part of something unusual. What is the matter here? What a powerful message these simple, at first glance, but as if keeping the warmth of kind hands objects convey! I ask the author if many works are sold?
– No, not many. People have no money, and foreigners, well, they really like to be given gifts…
Sadly, I mentally turn away to the invented formula “Soul plus money.” Is this unity really impossible? And if dependence is possible, is it inverse: “The more – the less”?
In the age of mass consumption
There is no Heaven.
The fate of artists
Is worse than cripples.
Giving them silver coins is absurd:
Man lives by Heaven alone…
It’s sad. But still, “my sorrow is bright”… And so I want to argue with people who say: “What ceramics, what graphics? People have nothing to eat!” But besides the body, there is also the soul, and it really wants a celebration. Hurry, the celebration is not eternal, but it still lasts. Its address: O. Honchar Regional Library, 3rd floor, Stas Volyazlovsky’s exhibition.Link