Places. Laureates of K. Malevich Award. Alevtina Kakhidze, Stas Wolyazlovski, Zhanna Kadyrova

European Malevich

It is wonderful to see an initiative meant to be of local appeal expand and take on an international dimension. It is gratifying to see how it provides an impetus for similar projects, which have become far more numerous in Ukraine now. It is indeed rewarding to speak about the Kazimir Malevich Award as an award initiated by the Polish Institute in Kyiv and supported by major Polish and Ukrainian institutions of contemporary art. The Kazimir Malevich Award for your Ukrainian artists until the age of 40, established in 2008, seemed only natural as it was new, unknown and first … There are a number of such awards in Ukraine today.

The Kazimir Malevich Artistic Award was launched in 2008 by the Polish Institute in Kyiv and the Ukrainian Contemporary Art Centre Foundation. The reasons for its creation were manifold. One of them was the need to draw attention to the Ukrainian artists who use an original language and to facilitate their stay and work in Poland. The first formal incentive is an artist-in-residence program in the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw. Thanks to it the artists establish personal and professional contacts. This is not really a way of promoting a canon but the creation of new platforms of dialogue between the artistic communities in Poland and Ukraine.

Alevtina Kakhidze, Stas Volyazlovsky and Zhanna Kadyrova – recipients of the Kazimir Malevich Award – show their most recent work in the Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, the key partner of the initiative and the most active art gallery in Eastern Poland. The artists employ a unique language and each takes a significant stand in art and the public sphere. Alevtina Kakhidze, the first laureate of the Kazimir Malevich Award in 2008, not only took part in joint Polish-Ukrainian projects but also urged for the presence of Polish artists in Ukraine. Stas Volyazlovsky, the award winner of 2010, shot a film on his Polish roots during his residence period and took part in shows of Ukrainian art in Poland and of Polish art in Ukraine. Similarly, Zhanna Kadyrova, the award recipient of 2012, an original sculptress and member of the Revolutionary Experimental Space group (R.E.P), will also work on her own project during her artist-in-residence program. All the laureates’ work can be found in the collections of Polish public institutions and is introduced into the international context, mainly thanks to the Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, but also thanks to the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Zachęta – National Gallery of Artand the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.

The show titled “Places” at the Arsenal Gallery is the first collective exhibition of the Kazimir Malevich Award laureates and at the same time a new stage of the Award. Next year it will be on display in the National Art Museum of Ukraineand will constitute another bridge joining artists, countries and institutions…

Jarosław Godun

Director of the Polish Institute in Kyiv

The initiative of the Polish Institute in Kyiv to establish an award for young Ukrainian artists seems a real breakthrough, or at least a major moment for the development of Ukrainian art scene. This was the first art award in Ukraine (followed by the PinchukArtCentre Prize). The award, which thanks to the diligence of the Institute, was conferred on magnificent artists, sends a signal that a time for an art different than that proposed by Academia has come.

Nominated in the competition were young, progressive artists. During the successive editions of the Award, we learned more and more about art in Ukraine. The final decision was becoming increasingly difficult.

The Award is a powerful tool at the hands of the Institute, which has since the very start promoted young visual artists in Ukraine. It is an evaluative tool that motivates artists and promotes young art, both in Poland and in Ukraine.

Impressed by this consistent work, we invited the Kazimir Malevich Award to the Arsenal Gallery in Białystok as a phenomenon which we present during a joint show of its three laureates so far: Alevtina Kakhidze, Stas Volyazlovsky and Zhanna Kadyrova. This is not a typical collective show along thematic lines but a merger of three solo presentations and areas that the eminent artists are currently working in. This is also a combination of three parallel narratives with the motif of a place as a major aspect. In the case of Stas and Alevtina this is a private place, either transferred directly to the gallery venue or domesticated through an adaptation. In Zhanna’a art an interference with a particular place is a kind of commentary rather than an atavist demarcation of territory.

All the artists have previously shown their work at the Arsenal Gallery. They are also represented by their most typical work in Collection II, established by the Arsenal Gallery and the Podlaskie Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych [Podlaskie Association for the Promotion of Fine Arts]. Still, we look forward to every new encounter with their art and to the invigorating breeze from the East that it offers.

Monika Szewczyk

exhibition curator