|
Indepth Arts News:
"Iliya Chichkan"
2000-01-10 until 2000-01-28
Apollonia, European Art Exchanges
Mulhouse, ,
FR France
As part of the cultural exchanges with the Ukraine and following the exhibition of contemporary Ukrainian photographers that took place in October and November 2000, Apollonia, European Art Exchanges and Le Quai, Art and Design School of Mulhouse and Upper Alsace organize a monographic exhibition of
Iliya Chichkan
Ukrainian artist
In connection with his residence at the School.
Contemporary photography in Ukraine has developed in two streams, as those
individuals traditionally referring to the medium during the Soviet period were
left behind by artists trained at the various Art Academies. The tradition of
photography and its relevance outside reportage is not found among artists
normally cited as those who consituted the dissident art movement in Ukraine.
Photography almost explicitly and sporadically developed in the countrỳs
eastern city of Kharkiv where it grew steadily as an underground movement
initiated in the late 1960s, unlike painting which did not share in a
consequential non-formalist movement during the Soviet period. Kharkiv's
movement in photography, as constituted by the group Vremya of which the
well known photographer and artist Boris Mihailov was a member, began as a
type of grass-roots organization, not unlike other organizations attempting a
type of covert discourse and exhibition beyond what was officially accepted.
This was not simply a counter-culture movement but an attempt to refer to
photography as a means to convey what lies beyond objective reality in an
effort to innervate amid a social construct seemingly anaesthetized. As
photography in the Soviet Union was restricted to those designated to employ
the camera for official or state purposes, Kharkiv's photographers often
resorted to standard images of condoned scenes reflecting the industrial and
economic infrastructure - factory employees, transportation systems, and
buildings, often manipulating the images by color alterations and
demarcations.
The photography which came out after Glasnost in a starkly regionalized
Ukraine had been the result of the initial meeting of two camps, the engineers
turned artists in Kharkiv and the painters turned installation artists in cities
such as Kyiv and Odessa. The former photography enclave in Kharkiv
developed into a much more antagonistic movement attempting to provide a
forum for photography as an art form with the efforts of such cooperatives as
The Fast Reaction Group (introducing the work of Serhiy Bratkov and Serhiy
Solonskiy) . In other cities, recent graduates from the Art Institute translated
their interest in film into situations first rendered on canvas, and then later
by photographic means. Artists such as Kyivan Iliya Chichkan began to render
noir subjects within large format photograph that the artist subsequently
painted with sepia and other washes. In contrast to Kharkiv, photography
became another avenue for artists seeking out another dimension for the
realization of their work. Vasily Ryabchenko
To provide a comprehensive portrait of what may be constituted as that specific
to the photographic tradition and development in Ukraine, is to understand the
continued importance both historically and currently in staged photography in
relation to what had been the prevalence for the documentary image. That is to
say that to despite the manipulation of the image or staging of a scene, the
photography remains bracketed within social reality and commentary.
Marta Kuzma
Related Links:
Quick Arts
Access:
Paris (269)
| | 
|
