The publishing house " Artistic reflections. Ukraine after 2013" The author of the book, Olesya Gerashchenko (Shambur), offers to look at a cross-section of contemporary Ukrainian art of Ukrainian art during the period of extraordinary historical shifts in the new history of Ukraine: the Revolution of Dignity, the Russian-Ukrainian war, the annexation of Crimea. The publication includes more than 50 interviews with Ukrainian artists, who talk about their own creative searches, as well as their civic and artistic reactions to current events in Ukraine..

35-year-old artist, art star of the Kharkiv artistic horizon Hamlet Zinkovsky says: “Fine art works indirectly, and if it is direct and understandable, then this is a poster”. Back in the spring of 2014, Hamlet made a series of collages “Waiting for the War”: old Soviet photographs, from the 1920s to the 1980s. One of his rather witty collages, as the artist himself says, is dedicated to the Crimea, and the other to the Kremlin. “In my work I want to talk about modernity more globally. I'm not interested in contemporary politicians. I don’t want to devote anything at all to people in power and I try to stay away from them as far as possible, ”Kharkiv Hamlet confesses on the pages of Nesvіdomy Mystetstva..

The famous 62-year-old artist from Kyiv, Matvei Weisberg, tells the author of the book: “When the Maidan had just begun, I went there not as an artist, but as a citizen – so that there would be more of us there. Over time, my impressions and photos from the scene accumulated..

And when the truce came, I realized that I would be needed more in my workshop..

Weisberg realized his art project " The form chosen by the artist is directly related to the biblical Wall and the events of the Old Testament. Later, the artist called his " Weisberg's project was exhibited at the Office of the European Commission, in London, in the Polish Seimas in Warsaw, in Berlin - as part of the " Ukraine. Path to freedom" According to the artist, before discussing the place of Ukrainian art in the big world, we must first find out for ourselves what it actually is - " “Those artists who have Ukrainian roots, even if they later went to Moscow, St. Petersburg or Warsaw, must be recognized as part of Ukrainian art,” the artist notes in his speech on the pages of Novopechat.

The legendary 85-year-old artist, a living classic of Ukrainian art, Ivan Marchuk, answering Olesya’s question about the position of a contemporary artist on events in Ukraine after 2013, says: “Social events are not reflected in my work, because I do not illustrate life. Certain cataclysms can affect me, but not immediately and indirectly. For example, I was in New York when the tragedy of September 11, 2001 happened, and I myself saw how the infamous towers fell. A few years later, I had a series called " I exhibited these paintings in Ivan Kavaleridze's museum-workshop in Kyiv, and the audience told me: “Ivan, this is an explosion! I looked at those paintings of mine - indeed, I saw that terrible explosion in the USA and, apparently, it got into my subconscious. And in the end I wrote a very expressive cycle. I love improvisation and a certain obsession, not specifics. It is useless to explain what exactly the artist had in mind - let everyone see his own "

Roman Minin, a 40-year-old graphic artist from Kharkiv, who in recent years has become one of the brightest art stars of the modern Ukrainian artistic horizon, recalls that one day he decided to create his own " “The money that I now receive is invested in new creative experiments, technical innovations, talented people and travel,” the artist confesses.. And he adds that he decided to join the global artistic process without any inferiority complexes - without the feeling that, say, a Ukrainian artist is a third world person.

“I have felt the growth of disagreements in the country since 2007. And then he offered to influential people to take Donetsk art to the West of Ukraine and thus exchange culture, but then no one lifted a finger,” says Minin from the pages of the book.

A particularly poignant location in the book-gallery " It seems that quite recently he was joking and conducting an author's tour of the halls of his Art Museum in Odessa, and now Roitburd, who passed away exactly a year ago - in August 2021 - has already become a bright section of the artistic history of Ukraine during the period of revolution and war. “I perceive philistine pacifism as treason, although I am not immersed in war. Maidan became a part of my own life, Maidan made me turn my face to reality, albeit indirectly,” Alexander Roitburd’s reflections on the pages of NeSvіdomy Mystetstva.

***.

More than 50 bright figures in the modern Ukrainian art space are united under the cover of one book by Olesya Gerashchenko (Shambur) " Characters from such icons of the national art Olympus as Ivan Marchuk, Anatoly Krivolap and Anatoly Dubovik to supernova art stars of our time: Roman Minin, Nikita Titov, Pavel Makov, Maria Kulikovskaya, Zhanna Kadyrova, Artem Volokitin and others.

In total, more than 50 personalized art stories, for each of them the author also booked a personal art gallery with selected art content of this or that artist as part of the book..

That is, the publication “Nesvіdome mystetstvo” is both a serious study in the field of modern art space and an exquisite art album that focuses the attention of a connoisseur of Ukrainian art on bright and principled works of modern domestic art context..

Personally, as one of the connoisseurs of just such content, it is especially pleasant for me to meet under the cover of the book by Olesya Gerashchenko (Shambur) many contemporary Ukrainian artists, my old acquaintances, who in recent years have been the heroes of numerous publications of “Mirror of the Week”.

What primarily attracts attention in the author's concept of the publication \? This is the author's conscious rejection of Turgenev's division of contemporary Ukrainian artists into parents and children.. That is, for representatives of the junior and senior art camps. The rejection of such a division, in my opinion, is based not on the desire of an art historian to quietly bypass the topic of the eternal conflict of generations in art, but on the fact that each of the Ukrainian artists, the heroes of the book, is already in the zone of constant conflicts of the present.. And such conflictology inspires someone to make an actual radical art gesture, and someone, such as the great Marchuk, has long been conducting his constant measured dialogue with Eternity.

The playful use of the particle NOT in the title of the book " In general, for me personally, living art is capable of existing exclusively in the area of \u200b\u200bthe subconscious, because in art, where the border of the “conscious” immediately opens, socialist realism begins..

Therefore, in the field of view of the new study is a bright generation of modern Ukrainian art stars not according to the passport (age) principle, but according to the principle of chronotope (time and place). Time of action - dramatic events in Ukraine after 2013. Location - Ukraine, Maidan, East of the country, where the Russian-Ukrainian war begins to unfold. And it is in this chronotope, based on my subjective feelings from what I read, that what unites Ukrainian artists of different generations and sometimes contrasting art camps. Such a common feature is the indifference of all our artists to already historical events in Ukraine and their artistic “involvement” in dramatic events, even if someone perceives the revolution and war indirectly, but for someone it is the foreground of the modern art front..

All of them are like children of the Maidan and witnesses (observers) of the hot phase of the war in eastern Ukraine, in fact, they are a single Ukrainian scorched generation, which, burning their palms, warmed themselves in the winter months near the fire on the Maidan, and then, with scorched souls and eyes moist with tears.

Olesya Gerashchenko (Shambur) asks the heroes of her research about the time and place of the artist in the present tense, about the role of art in resolving conflicts, about the place of Ukraine in the global art context.

And not a single formulaic or forced answer. The singed generation speaks sincerely and figuratively, sometimes with historical digressions.

48-year-old Kharkov artist Nikita Titov, answering a question about the constructive role of art in a conflict environment, correctly recalls the famous peacemaker Pablo Picasso and says: Picasso's "

From the point of view of the creative super-task, this new book " As an art historian who seeks to dive deep and carefully examine the current creative trends of contemporary Ukrainian art. As a publicist who vividly and figuratively reacts to the painful points of the real Ukraine, extrapolating the views of almost five dozen contemporary Ukrainian artists, representatives of the singed generation and not pretending to be socially competitive with Gertrude Stein, who called her contemporaries of the First World War the "

And one more incarnation of the author of the book - as a historian, because in such a serious work “time is captured”, it is this time, our time with you, the history of Ukraine in the grip of the Revolution of Dignity and the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Regarding the last disaster, I singled out for myself the direct speech of my favorite artist Anatoly Krivolap, Shevchenko Prize winner, an outstanding master and one of the “most expensive contemporary Ukrainian artists”.

Here is what he says: “Compromise in any conflict is a wonderful thing, without which neither a person nor society as a whole can live.. But there is a compromise. When another country attacks yours, this is the border beyond which compromise is impossible.. The enemy is subject to destruction if he does not want or cannot negotiate. A unilateral compromise is not a compromise, but a surrender of the interests of the state. Therefore, art, of course, is sometimes able to work peacefully, but its influence should not be exaggerated..

Olesya Gerashchenko (Shambur) was born in Mariupol. Received a master's degree in international business (2001) and international law (2008), studying in Kyiv, Lillehammer and Berlin, qualified as a mediator. PhD student in Cultural Studies at the Doctoral School of the National University "

In March 2014, in response to public challenges, she established the public organization " Lives in Kyiv.

Read more articles by Oleg Vergelis at the link.

[votes id\u003d"