On October 14, artist Stanislav Volyazlovsky would have turned 48 years old. Unfortunately, he passed away last year, and an ambiguous situation has developed around his legacy. We recorded an interview with Viktoria Bavykina, curator of the exhibition “Stanislav,” which opened on October 1 at the Kharkiv Municipal Gallery as part of the 2nd Biennale of Young Art, and also took comments from the curators of the exhibition “Originals” at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Kherson.
From the author: Stanislav Volyazlovsky was born on October 14, 1971, in Kherson. He graduated from art school and courses for artist-designers. He participated in the work of the associations R.E.P. and CMI “Totem”. Since 2000, he has participated in all-Ukrainian and international group and solo exhibitions. Winner of the Malevich Prize (2011).
Stas Volyazlovsky worked in a style he himself defined as “chanson art”:
“Chanson art is my reflection on the world in which I exist, with its interests, problems, fears, religion, new cultural challenges, with its television and programs filled with idiotic advertising, dismemberment, crime, pornography, series, and politics, with its yellow press and its internet. Perhaps for me, it is a kind of art therapy. I really manage to free myself from everything that invades my brain against my will. I take and pour out everything that has accumulated in a kind of cheap-concentrated form on a sheet of paper or old second-hand sheets, which I draw on with ballpoint pens.”
He passed away in January 2018. In May 2019, Alla Borisovna Volyazlovskaya transferred all her son’s works that she had to the fund of Tatyana and Boris Grinevs, setting the main condition of this decision as the popularization of Volyazlovsky’s work by the Grinev fund. This gesture caused an ambiguous reaction in the Ukrainian art community and frankly negative in Kherson (where Stas was from and where he lived until his death).
Alla Borisovna Volyazlovskaya at the exhibition opening.
I do not set myself the task of rocking the boat more than it has already been rocked. It is pointless to endlessly pour out anger about Alla Borisovna’s decision to transfer the heritage to the Grinev fund. She has her reasons, clearly expressed. Whether they are justified or not is too personal to discuss publicly.
In any case, provocative attempts by some representatives of the Kharkiv art community to find out from Stas’s mother who is on whose side are unacceptable. This is the worst thing that can be done in this situation. As well as giving comments like “dogs bark, the caravan moves on.” Yes, we bark. And quite loudly.
We, the people of Kherson, curators of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Kherson, representatives of the local art community, friends of Stas, are definitely sorry that his works “left” Kherson. Yes, we, like many others, have concerns related to the certain hermetic nature of the work of such funds, and with the activities of collectors in general. At this stage, issues of joint ownership (Stas made videos together with Semen Khramtsov and the team of the CKR “Totem”) are a priority. Boris Grinev plans a visit to Kherson to meet with everyone involved to resolve controversial issues.
Considering the motivation of the fund — to prolong the memory of the artist through working with archives and presenting the unknown Volyazlovsky to the general public, the fund’s team will be expected to create exhibitions “worthy” of the artist’s scale. So one must be ready for the most ruthless criticism. Participants of research platforms are naturally concerned about how consistent and serious this “commemorative” strategy is. And only time will tell.
Regarding the curatorial perspective, Viktoria Bavykina explains why she preferred Volyazlovsky’s photographs and how she envisions further work with his archive.
– The backstory is this. It all started in late spring, with the story of transferring Stas’s heritage and archive by his mother to the fund of Tatyana and Boris Grinevs. At that time, no one fully understood the entire volume of upcoming work and responsibility. First, mom brought folders with graphics, then transferred textiles. Together with Katya Lebedeva, my colleague from the fund, Alla Borisovna, and the Grinevs, we all looked and tried to systematize. Meanwhile, all these conflict situations around the heritage were developing.
Our first show was very intimate — a small selection of Stas’s works in the fund’s office. Present were Semen Khramtsov (representative of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Kherson, friend of Stas and co-author of some of his video works), Olga Balashova, representative of the National Art Museum of Ukraine, Alexandra Tryanova (curator of Volyazlovsky’s exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Odessa), and others sympathetic to this process.
It was at this event that mom officially stated she was donating the entire archive to the Grinev fund. Olga Balashova* testified that everything was legal and assured that the National Museum, acting as a “third party” and participating in this transfer, would also participate in preserving and interpreting the transferred archive.
– According to Alla Borisovna, the National Museum really wanted to acquire these archives. But there are some problems…
– As far as I know, they cannot afford it yet; their participation is purely mediatory. Working with such material is practically impossible due to structural and bureaucratic difficulties. And mom did not want to wait.
– And still, why photographs?
– When the Young Art Biennale proposed organizing Volyazlovsky’s exhibition, I, understanding that I would be the curator, began thinking about its “content.” Most of the works now in the fund have already been seen by someone. This is Stas, whom we all know well. Of course, one can interpret him differently, but I wanted something new.
In one of the conversations with Alexander Solovyov, the idea arose that Stas took a lot of photographs, and they were never publicly shown. I brought this idea to Grinev, but at that time we had no photographs. We contacted mom, and it turned out she had about two hundred CDs at home. She gave us this box, and from that moment my three-month journey began. I realized with horror that I had nowhere even to view them. Disk after disk, I sifted through all these treasures.
– Was there a moment of despair?
– Yes, because on one disk there is one folder, on another fifty. And you never know what you will find: in one folder one photo, in another a hundred. And in a third — ten more folders. Some disks were systematized and labeled, others were like everyone else’s. Well, a lot of time was spent transferring them to another medium to simplify the task and prolong the life of the photographs.
– Did Stas reveal himself to you even more after the “nth” folder? You knew each other, right?
– I came across photographs that exactly reflected the Stas I knew. Staged, funny, with a stool on the head or a plunger in various places, “nudes”… I did not expect to see anything else. But there were also those that showed me a completely different side of him.
There are many family shoots, portraits of children**, street photography… At first, I did not delve much, but then I began to set aside, look closely. And let it sound primitive, but you cannot take your eyes off the stories in these photographs. And this is not amateur household photography, this is photography made by an artist.
– At the opening, Kharkiv photographers, paying tribute and so on, said that these works do not have special artistic value. And that they perceive this selection as part of history, as a kind of memorial gesture. Diptychs are more successful in this regard, there is more artistry here… They were generally liked by many…
– You see, the thing with Kharkiv photographers is this: I don’t want to offend anyone, but contemporary Ukrainian photography strives to be very modern. Relevant, new, to find a new language or reinvent it. Some kind of “street” or portrait has long ceased to interest us. It’s boring, it’s old. We have overlays, we have the Kharkiv school. Simplicity is especially impossible now.
And these photographs reminded me of the works of American authors of the 1960s-1970s. And I still like them. I do not see in them “obsolescence,” a dead photographic language. Like them, Stas has his own special view. Volyazlovsky’s photography is perhaps less skillful, unpretentious and naive, therefore more truthful, but surreal in its essence.
– Did you select on this principle?
– Yes, by the “peculiarity” of these moments. But there is nothing extraordinary there. Yes, this is not the current mandatory condition to “stir up” the viewer, to unbalance him. These are quite, at first glance, routine things. But these two men, who like two Madonnas support the “baby,” and in his hands ketchup “Chumak”… These are already elements of absurdity.
– A moment of anthropology.
– Yes! Stas manifested himself in documenting these moments. Nothing more is needed.
– Is there a certain narrative here connecting all these photographs?
– Honestly, it is all built on an internal feeling, there is no definite story here, but there are recurring characters — flowing from one series to another. They can also be seen in the videos. There are recurring thematic situations.
Actually, I focused most on the portrait — it seemed to me the strongest. Large-format works are some kind of reference points. The video selection follows the same principle of “commonality”: some photographs are fragments from videos. But here for me comes a controversial moment — when I began thinking about conceptualization, considering that this is my first experience working with material for an exhibition without the artist and my not very deep knowledge of Stas…
We have known each other since Non Stop Media in 2012 and communicated a lot. But this is not enough to say “I knew him well.” Moreover, we never discussed his photographs. That is, it did not seem right to me to invent what Stas wanted to say with them. I am rather a kind of alienated viewer.
And for me, there was a moral dilemma about how much I have the right as a curator, or researcher, or fund worker to “overlay” my vision on these works without the artist’s participation, who cannot discuss this choice with me. Therefore, this exhibition, in general, has no concept. Perhaps, as I delve deeper into the archival materials, the approach to public representation of his legacy will change, but now I do not want to build some idea of my own.
– This experience, successful or not, is in any case the first in working with this archive. Is there any point in further revealing Volyazlovsky to the Kharkiv public?
– In the photographic sense, I think yes. And now I have subjectively selected works that, in my opinion, should be highlighted. Without interfering with the existing narrative in the photography itself, which Stas created. The only thing I allowed myself was to make diptychs.
There is even a triptych, this is Stas’s project with a description. He wrote that in Kherson they love and respect watermelons so much that if one breaks, people bring it flowers. The other diptychs I formed myself, guided by my knowledge of Stas, his irony, his attitude to many things, my analysis of his work as a whole…
– Diptychs are presented in a serious “exhibition” format. The contrast with the “simple” presentation of individual shots is obvious. What is the idea?
– The absurdity of the plots is doubled and even tripled by the “solemn” museum presentation under glass. This boy radiating happiness and pride, and next to him a mature solid man — with the same childish pride on his face against the background of the portrait of Lutsenko…
– A well-chosen quote for the exhibition. Did it catch you?
– This is another important moment revealing Stas as a person. I was sorting through recordings and texts brought by mom. They are in their way journalistic, even philosophical, with sound reflections on life, politics. Some of them went into the book, by the way. This quote seemed to me very accurately characterizing his attitude to reality and his place in it. His more narrative presence here is quite appropriate.
– How did non-artists perceive this exhibition? Were you able to catch the first feedback?
– Most of those who managed to share their impressions noted the sincerity of these works in one way or another. Future plans include showing his ceramics. This is also a little-known side of him, and he started with this.
– Is there anything to show?
– Not so much, but it can be combined with other works. In some evolutionary aspect — as stages of the artist’s development. This is a kind of super idea — to reveal him from all possible sides. At the same time, there is no task to regularly hold local or regional exhibitions. Rather, the emphasis will be on research work with the archive, with different media in Stas’s creativity. This will allow forming some new view of him.
– Is this the fund’s strategy?
– Yes, first of all, it is responsibility to mom. And to the entire art community. This is the whole point — to show this, to provide other researchers access to these materials, not just own them. Actually, this is the danger of the misconception that private funds lock their acquisitions behind seven locks and then sell them. The Grinev fund performs the function of state institutions — collects, researches, promotes…
– What is the story with transferring Volyazlovsky’s works to the Pompidou Center?
– Details are not yet known. Although representatives of Pompidou came to us in the summer, we showed them the Kharkiv school, as well as Stas’s videos, ceramics, and textiles. They really liked it. The Center’s director, watching the videos, understood nothing in terms of language, I could not translate fast enough, but it was not necessary — he laughed so much! And when I finally translated, he laughed even more. Stas managed to invent a universal visual language. And the group “Rapan”? I’m a fan (laughs).
– A few words about the book…
– Mom said that Stas dreamed of a book of his poems, so it mainly contains poems and several journalistic texts, which, by the way, would be good to accompany exhibitions of any of his works. They show the seriousness of his attitude to life. Under the layer of irony and sarcasm are the deepest reflections.
That is, we again try to show his “multifacetedness,” to move away from the iconic image. However, his irony is also different. The illustrations use Stas’s graphics, his early drawings, ex-libris.
We perfectly understand that this event is not ordinary. However, such things cannot be ignored. Moreover, this is important not only for mom and Volyazlovsky’s close ones but for all of us. I think the book, like this exhibition, can become a reason to discuss a more global topic — working with an archive that contains different media. Plus the experience of transferring heritage, its legal side — also an important subject for discussion.
– This is a precedent…
– Exactly. I hope there will be more and more collectors, and accordingly, precedents. And, therefore, more transparency in these processes.
Comments
*Olga Balashova, Deputy Director for Development of the National Art Museum of Ukraine (NAMU):
– I could not testify to the legality of the transfer of these works, as I do not have such authority. I only acknowledged that the museum trusts Boris Grinev and his fund. There was never talk of their purchase, but if we were offered to acquire them, we would look for money and probably find it.
In any case, Alla Borisovna did not intend to sell them. She transferred them to the Grinev fund for free but set many conditions in return — an exhibition once a year, publication of books, continuous scientific work, etc. We could not fulfill them because we have a very large collection and many artists with whom a small team works.
We agreed with Boris Viktorovich on Stas’s exhibition. And after it, some works will be transferred to the museum’s collection. The museum has been working with contemporary art for many years and very productively; we hold the largest museum collection of Ukrainian contemporary art. There is a 20th-21st-century department, and we have already submitted a request to the ministry to change the structure and create a contemporary art department, so it will be from next year.
Oksana Barshinova, Deputy General Director of NAMU for Exhibition and Display Work:
– Usually, the museum acts as a moderator in the process of consistent and, most importantly, stable formation of the artist’s legacy. It is museum specialists who understand when a simple set of artifacts turns into a collection and archive. The National Art Museum of Ukraine is capable and ready to take on this role regarding Stas Volyazlovsky’s legacy.
A feature of contemporary art is that the artist’s legacy does not consist of separate artifacts. It is very important to consider the context in which they arose and with which they are closely connected, co-authorship, the author’s message or his reflection on a specific, possibly very local situation. Therefore, openness of the collection, collaboration, and dialogue are especially important; it is important for everyone together to increase the amount of information about certain works.
**Elena Afanasyeva, Director of the Cultural Development Center “Totem,” Kherson
– Of course, Stas was an excellent photographer with a completely special sense of borderline states. But the photographs of large families included in the exhibition do not speak of him as an artist — these are simply good compositions (and we know that Stas was fine with composition).
Many years ago, I invited Stas to participate in the project of creating books “Ukraine with Many Children: A Caring Look” commissioned by an all-Ukrainian women’s public organization. We traveled around the country, and Stas worked as a photographer. All photographs were transferred for the creation of books, and some he kept in his archive for drawings. That is, he did not plan to exhibit them, and we did not have the rights — people gave permission to be photographed specifically for a particular organization and project aimed at lobbying benefits for large families.
Therefore, I am not at all sure that photographs from this part of Stas’s archive can be exhibited as an example of “how well Stas photographed children.” These photos were needed for sketches of drawings. I think the archive needs to be handled carefully. You cannot exhibit what “pleases” or is “decent” — because it may be just raw material. In the case of the series of children’s photographs, raw material should not be presented as a finished work, even if you really want to show Volyazlovsky as “kind and fluffy.”
Yanina Prudenko, cultural expert, curator of the Open Archive of Ukrainian Media Art:
– With the growth of awareness and development of civil society, we increasingly resent discussing the existence of Ukrainian business outside the legal field, the violation of human rights in our country. The situation with Stas’s legacy showed our unreadiness to recognize the need for legal relations in the field of culture and art.
In conversations with art historians who consult collectors, I found that even the fact of buying and selling art works is rarely formalized in our country. Someone transfers a work to someone under unclear circumstances and on unclear grounds, then this work, in the situation of transferring copyright to a specific fund/collector, essentially acquires its legal owner.
I know firsthand how difficult the legal field is in contemporary art in our country. The archive I have been collecting for more than 10 years is also practically outside the legal field because Ukraine simply does not have a unified legal framework for artworks transferred as video files, software. Even when video artists’ works are copied from their YouTube and Vimeo channels and shown on the Open Archive of Ukrainian Media Art website — this is still an illegal action. Artists themselves rarely think about their copyrights, often not even marking their works with Creative Commons licenses.
Therefore, my entire collection is personal agreements and good relations with many artists and media art researchers from different regions of Ukraine. Thus, Stas during his residency at Biryuchiy in 2015 gave me many of his video works on his word of honor.
Now the Open Archive of Ukrainian Media Art needs to formally document agreements with the Grinev fund about the right to use them, for example, for educational and promotional purposes. For me personally, this is a new challenge, which I treat as an absolutely inevitable process that sooner or later had to appear in our contemporary art field.
It seems to me that we simply need to wake up and start literacy education in the field of copyright in art. In our case, eliminating legal illiteracy is simply necessary for all actors in this process — artists, researchers, curators, collectors. Even art institutions with history are no exception.
Art museums open to collecting contemporary art, including that created with non-traditional artistic media, find themselves in a situation of forced re-inventory of their principles of including new art forms in the collection. This requires revising methods of describing works, ways of storing them, etc.
In an ideal world, this process should happen collectively and on a large scale — seminars, conferences, round tables are needed. As a result of this work, artists, researchers, collectors, lawyers should develop and implement at the legislative level unified legal models in the field of copyright for contemporary art.
“Originals”
On October 14, 2019, Stas Volyazlovsky would have turned 48 years old. On this day, the curatorial group of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Kherson (MCAK) opened the exhibition “Originals” — tracings of the artist’s works, the only thing left after Alla Borisovna Volyazlovskaya transferred Stas’s “heritage” to the Boris and Tatyana Grinev fund.
The idea of the exposition was honed over a year, but the concept had to be adjusted, returning to the pure “primordiality” of the idea, back to basics, which made everything even more poignant and closer. Is this a competition between two institutions for the right to prolong the memory of the artist? Yes, to some extent. The fragility of both memory and the cripple is obvious.
The good news is that everything happening now makes this process real. A great move is to show finished works on a tablet during the curatorial tour and tell stories about their creation. And it seems you already know everything, but in such a bright performative interpretation, enriched with friends’ comments, it is a captivating trip that, hopefully, will never end.
Comments from the MCAK curatorial group
Vyacheslav Mashnitsky, founder and head of MCAK:
– “Originals” (also “tracings”) is not just a title, it is a complex metaphor: transparency of processes related to the transfer of the artist’s heritage, transparency of his work, his inner dialogue, that “craft” stage when everything is just beginning. Accordingly, such a “crippled” exhibition.
I would like to note that Stas is undoubtedly a native talent of our region. It is strange to doubt that local experts and all interested parties in promoting his legacy could not work with all its facets. But I hope for normal cooperation when all controversial issues will be resolved. We work in the field of culture and must be able to build cultural relations. But I understand Semen Khramtsov’s fair impulse — he and Stas made many wonderful projects together. And this is a factor that requires careful consideration.
The “Tracings” exhibition presents works from the MCAK collection and the Polina Rayko fund. What remained after Stas’s works went on some world tour. The idea of this exhibition was born more than a year ago. We planned to hold it on Stas’s birthday. I think it turned out well.”
Semen Khramtsov, MCAK curator:
– The museum is permeated with Stas’s “deeds.” His debut happened here. Here he was “found” by Alexander Solovyov, shown to collectors, Pinchuk and everyone else, and the battle for him began. These walls have seen many of his works and works in terms of exhibitions, curatorship.
Doing exhibitions with him was both a pleasure and a torment — heated debates until complete exhaustion, his ruthless perfectionism until everything was as it should be. The current disputes are also quite heated, and we are ready to resolve them on a civilized level. But the legal grounds provided to us are so far unconvincing. From my point of view, there are violations, and this needs further investigation.
Yes, we do not have the funds to hire experienced lawyers. But our weapon is art. And we came up with our “commemorative” move, quite creative and effective — “originals,” referring us to the origins of his creativity. Thanks to representatives of the National Museum, Pinchuk Art Center, Polish Institute for supporting us in this situation.
Regarding the “Stanislav” exhibition at the Kharkiv Municipal Gallery, I find it weak — both conceptually and in terms of the “selection.” There are also questions about exhibiting joint works. Plus a “vinaigrette” of personal archive and commissioned photographs within various projects, not always related to culture, simply put, side jobs, family photos… It feels like the view of people who know Stas very little.
I can also comment on the book. By the way, we collected the texts here, I handed everything to mom, and here comes such a collection where neither my name as the archivist of these texts (proofreading, sorting) nor the author of the photographs is indicated. I do not criticize the content, but the inscription on the spine of the cover — “Shanson Art – super х*й Volyzlovsky S – super поц” seems to me absolutely inappropriate. It is somehow very disrespectful to the deceased. He can no longer defend his reputation. This should be done by us, his friends. And our task is to prevent the emergence of myths.
It is clear that there will be myths, this is reality, but it is not worth stooping to transmitting the image of a freak. Stas was a complex person, but we want to promote his work, not speculate on his biography. We decided to work through his biography through “tracings” — inventing a tour of the exhibition with a tablet where viewers are shown the final version of the work and accompanied by a story about how it was created. Mom gave me the tracings herself when we sorted through a huge pile of Stas’s collage raw materials from an old wardrobe.
When I met Stas, he said to me, “I want Kherson to become the center of contemporary art.” Someone might find it funny and naive, but it explains all our activities and Stas’s drive to “promote” Kherson in works, other artists, exhibitions, criticism…
He was engaged in cultural charity and took direct part in the establishment of the Museum of Contemporary Art. I explained this in personal correspondence with Grinev, but he preferred not to refuse such a priceless gift, organizing the “transfer” of the archive in an incorrect and ugly form. We gave works for the exhibition for the book release, not to the Grinev fund archive.
Rina Khramtsova, co-curator of the exhibition
– Stas always invited us to the museum on his birthday, and now the museum invites us to see Stas’s “originals.” We knew each other for 6 years and celebrated all his birthdays together. His last exhibition at MCAK was “Crash Matrix”. Today we look at his “intangible” side, something fragile, ephemeral… This “fragility” also overlays the situation around Stas’s legacy.
The money from entrance tickets will be spent on creating conditions for storing the works, there is a plan to frame them under glass and exhibit them in other museums or galleries. Stas is alive as long as we talk about him.Link
