“Biography”, an Exhibition by Open Group in the Context of РАС-UA Re-Consideration
The PinchukArtCentre presents the second “PAC-UA Re-consideration” project - an exhibition by Open Group, an artistic group formed by five young Ukrainian artists Yuriy Biley, Anton Varga, Pavlo Kovach, Yevgen Samborsky, and Stanislav Turina. “Biography” is a result of collaboration of the Open Group with Lviv-based artist Yuriy Sokolov invited to join a group to explore collaboratively the notion of biography today. The show researches the idea of self-representation, it looks into how this notion is being transformed today, when the image of a person is created by the digital media around him/her.
The whole
exhibition is based on the audience engagement, starting with a letter written
by
Yuriy Sokolov calling people to submit their biographies for the project. As a
source of inspiration Sokolov refers to an abstract from the text by Daniil
Kharms with the key message that “a human being is part of the world”. In the
course of the exhibition, which is an ongoing performative action, the audience
is encouraged to write autobiographies that will be transformed by the artists.
The biographies will be read, voiced in the exhibition space, documented and
stored to generate the Open Group’s “archive” that will be gradually
materialized within the exhibition.
Everyone can submit his/her biography by writing it down and bring it
personally to the PinchukArtCentre; send it to the e-mail biography.openprojeс[email protected]
or post it on the Facebook page facebook.com/opengroupart
Open Group: “Biographies may be
signed/anonymous, short/long, true/made up, and so forth. Your biography will
be part of the project, and you will become part of the Open Group!”
Starting from the
contradiction locked inside the word “biography”, literally meaning “life” and
“writing”, the artists think of ambivalence between present and past, moment
and record, spontaneity and automatic writing. They are mixing up a
conventional understanding of a biography, which is seen in oral tradition and
classical writing, with today’s understanding of the individual in flux, when
she/he is perceived as a product of social interaction. The exhibition
questions social networking that favours total “democratization” of a person
and offers every individual a possibility to create a myth around him/herself.
By collecting biographies the artists respond to the today's ambition of the
audience to show emotions and create knowledge about them in a common shared
space, in a way meeting their aspirations to become a producer rather than a
consumer.
Björn Geldhof, Deputy artistic director
of the PinchukArtCentre, co-curator of the show: “After winning the Special PinchukArtCentre Prize 2013 Open Group
presents their second large-scale project, actively engaging public and public
space into development of a new work, called “Biography”. Challenging the notions
of self-representation and a personal image which is more and more constructed
around social media, the individual has somehow lost control over the way that
the world looks at him or her.”
In the course of
the exhibition artists expect people to rethink their perception of the
self-representation, in the meantime touching the notion of a mobile or, put it
differently, a constantly changing identity that has appeared in the social
networking today.
The
exhibition is co-curated by Bjorn Geldhof, Deputy Artistic Director of
the PinchukArtCentre, and Tatiana Kochubinska, junior curator of the
PinchukArtCentre.
The show is open on the 4th floor in
the “PAC-UA” space from 10 July till 24 August, 2014.
“PAC-UA Re-consideration” is a new exhibitions series of the PinchukArtCentre that researches the relations and influences between Ukrainian art scene of today and artistic practices of the past. It discovers the continuity of tradition in the context of interrupted development of Ukrainian art history, showing new works created by new generation of artists inspired by older artistic positions. A solo show by Ukrainian artist Alevtina Kakhidze “TV Studios / Rooms without Doors”was the first show presented in the framework of “PAC-UA Re-consideration”.