The Eight. Ukainian Avant-garde

The appearance of a new dimension of thinking

L. Shestov

Avant-Garde: Ukrainian Model. Avant-garde art is a unique phenomenon in the global artistic practice. A categorical revision of the image of the world, it was informed by great scientific discoveries in various fields of knowledge, that made it impossible to reflect the new perception of the world by means of traditional verbal and visual images. Avant-garde artists, the creators and conductors of new meanings in the planetary scale, looked for the answers to the important questions of existence; they propagated the prophesy and the dream of spiritual revival. Their new approach to mastering the reality is also connected with the emergence of a new artistic language; with the renunciation of the principle of mimesis (similarity). The fundamental rejection of the figurativeness led to radical plastic innovations: abstraction, pointlessness, visualization of the world beyond our perception. An artwork became an independent planetary world, a plastic realization of thought, a reflection of the micro- and macrocosm, the breath of the universe or the movements of the soul.

The artistic practices of Russian and Ukrainian avant-garde are distinguished due to their specific radicalism, incredible invariance, and to the contribution made by a number of the greatest masters of creativity. V. Kandinsky and K. Malevich, V. Tatlin and V. Ermilov, M. Matyushin and P. Filonov, A. Exter and A. Bogomazov, as well as many others, wishing to express the ideas of certain fundamental principles of space and cosmogony, came to the creation of a universal artistic system and its theoretical justification. They laid the foundation for the new artistic thinking that is necessary for understanding contemporary art.

The collection of graphic works by eight famous Ukrainian avant-garde artists, all of which paved a way for the art of the 20th century, acquaints us with the nature of searching for a new artistic language in the space of Ukrainian modernism.

A variety of plastic solutions ‒ from extremely radical or pointless to more moderate, ones featuring figurative elements ‒ introduces us to the peculiar features of the Ukrainian avant-garde model.

The representatives of neo-primitivism, constructivism, cubo-futurism, spectralism, projectionism and other innovations, working in the field of an easel and mural painting, poster design and book illustration, industrial design and stage scenery, reveal us their laboratory, their creative “kitchen” where small graphic works of preliminary nature, as a rule, gave rise to new forms and laid the foundations for post-classical art.

This project is a unique opportunity not only to “have a quick look into the discoverer’s workshop”, but also to feel involved in the process of great discoveries that predetermined, for a long time, the development of a whole new approach to arts.

olena Borymska