Stukalova, Kateryna. Ukraine: the search for self-identification // Moscow Art Magazine 1998, N°22

Does national differentiation still exist in contemporary art and if so, then how expedient is it to define? When in September 1997, during a conference timed with the opening of an Italian contemporary art exhibition, “Opera Formoza”, in Kiev the Italians tried to raise this issue, the audience were complete apathetic and uninterested. Fashionable words like “self-identification” and “geopolitics” would not induce the expected reaction. The audience was not even amused, when the Italians started playing on that: “Ukraine and Italy are so similar; we also had a totalitarian regime…”.
If Italians knew the history of Ukrainian contemporary art better as well as the totalitarian regime they would recall the notorious Ukrainian “trans-vanguard” movement. It is this movement of the late 80-s with its picturesque style, bright expressionism and conceptual opposition to Moscow’s conceptualism, which provided the new Ukrainian art with if not world then “all-Union” fame. However they only came in 1997, when all that was left from the trans-vanguard movement were memories. There was no particular vitality left in Kiev’s art. The baroque has taken its place – on cathedral facades and in 18-th century iconostasises, while indigenous “Ukrainian” art flourishes in salons. Only the names remain and the list has not changed from the one 10 years ago. These thirty something veterans are now creating works that are vague in terms of style and material, which are equally reminiscent of conceptualism and multimedia art.

Due to the lack of new strength and ideas the problem of the self-identification of Ukrainian art becomes almost impossible to solve and therefore outdated. More important is the issue of orientation, but not in terms of searching for commercial market or material for imitation. In this state of ideological crisis of the development of new art paradigms, the exploration of new territories in the imagined geopolitical landscape is impossible without a connection with global trends and coalition with powerful allies.
The main points of connection were determined a long time ago. On an axis marked “East-Ukraine-West” the closest point on one side is Moscow and on the other side – Warsaw (Russia and Poland have always been two points of reference for the Ukraine, when it comes to determining its political, religious and cultural orientation). These powers, however, do not mark the end of the graph, but are transition points on the way to the true center of contemporary art – America or that most important of all the provinces – Western Europe.
However inclination towards Moscow is losing its prominence and its importance. There are several reasons for this – firstly from Kiev’s point of view Moscow does not produce any art worthy of argument or imitation. Besides that, this art is not exhibited in the Ukraine. In terms of supplying information Russia is much further away from Kiev than Poland. Information about Moscow generally reduced to the heroic saga of the lives of two people – Alexander Brener and Oleg Kulik. However the social aggression of their projects is not in the spirit of the conformist Ukrainian mentality. The Ukranian attitude towards Moscow is no longer coloured by post-colonial syndrome. It is more that Moscow still sees self as the center of the empire rather than that the Ukraine considers itself to be on the periphery of this empire. Moscow is now seen as an alien environment, which one can either reject or swallow. Therefore Ukrainian artists no longer take it into account as an influence on their political stance. Another kind of relationship is being formed with the Eastern European countries, mainly with the Czech Republic and Poland. These countries are like the first border control on the way to the “real” Europe, which can be either ignored or crossed. It was thus described by the Polish press in October 1993, when the exhibition “The Steppe of Europe” – the most impressive exhibition of Ukrainian art ever held in Eastern Europe – was on in Warsaw (the Polish-Canadian curator Yuri Onukh gathered together the work of the best representatives of the various trends in new Ukrainian art – Oleg Golosy, Oleg Tistol, Arsen Savadov, Gleb Vysheslavsky, Valentin Rayevsky, Alexander Reutburd and others). Critics saw it as an indeed a step towards Munich, Paris and New-York for Ukranian art.
Due to the financial reasons the exhibition was not shown in the West as the curator had hoped and the general situation soon changed. The contemporary art in Poland, and the Czech and the Slovak republics created under the influence of Western art, thereby aiming to be globally accepted by establishment art and not like the showy art of Moscow, does not need to look to the Ukraine for support or to see it as a point of transition on the way to the West. The coalition is further complicated by the fact that Ukrainian artists are not interested in dull and academic installations like a great deal of contemporary Eastern European art, but at the same time is lacking the latter’s formal quality.
The situation is also complicated by the present stagnation in the cultural life of the Ukraine. Of late there have been practically no newcomers to the cultural life there. Emasculated, over used concepts are waiting in vain for new methods to give them life. Moreover, new methods are compromised by a lack of proffecionalism and by an inability to make the concept as innovative as the method.
The most interesting work is being done in the sphere of the so-called “non-utilitarian”. Young artists, who do not actively take part in the Ukranian artistic life which is dominated by the trans-vanguard generation are trying to strike a balance between public art and design, and to define for themselves their concepts and methods. In their opinion art does not have to be internationally recognized or presented at all biennales and trienalles or bought by famous museums. The way to a museum is now to be found in a string of institutes of contemporary art as museums have become the only real consumers of non-utalitarian art. To change the consumer one needs to change the art. Art has to become useful and to have a local buyer. Then it will no longer be necessary to penetrate the Western art which is already overflowing with names.
This is the third stance, or rather, the utopian stance which has not yet been sufficiently broadcast or realised in expositions or public decisions. It does not exist as a trend with representatives or a structure, but more like the general attitude of the younger generation. However, it is an organic phenomenon for the Ukraine but which is not yet supported by typical contemporary art infrastructure.
So far the Ukraine is still looking backwards – at the same time there are several projects coming to finition under the slogan “Ukranian art of the 20th century”. The desire to understand what we already possess and from that to decide in what direction to advance is natural in the current situation and is a correct way to proceed to self-identification. The only source of doubt is new technology and global communication network. Maybe thanks to them the issue of self-identification will loose its importance in the 21st century.