11 August - 20 September 2023
Collage leaves the viewer with an incredible amount of freedom for interpretation. Thanks to the combination of tradition and innovation, it never tires of surprising, remaining one of the main trends in contemporary art.
Collage art is inspired by a wide variety of sources. The artist's imagination combines heterogeneous elements into an unexpected and paradoxical aesthetic unity. Collage has many faces. In Dadaism, it is an attempt to go into the absurd, beyond the limits of the meaning sanctified by tradition. In Surrealism, it is a manifestation of the unconscious. In any manifestation, collage is a multi-coded semantic space, and that is why it is able to recognise non-obvious connections between objects and phenomena. The aesthetics of collage is fuelled not only by the idea of deconstruction or "stream of consciousness", but can also be associated with the formation of a new worldview, a new socio-cultural reality.
Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, Dadaism and Surrealism, the avant-garde of the 1920s and the constructivism of the Bauhaus School, American Abstract Expressionism of the 1960s, musical collages from Bach to Stockhausen, films by Oleksandr Dovzhenko and Serhii Parajanov... Collage is always looking to the future, to the search for new bright names! Hannah Höch, Richard Hamilton, John Stezaker, Linder Sterling – each of them has made amazing artistic discoveries. The Danish-Ukrainian artist Serhii Sviatchenko, whose artworks have gained European recognition, also deserves a worthy place in this line. He is known as the founder of the Less collage style, which is based on a combination of only three elements and nine colours. This artistic method gave birth to an entire trend in contemporary art.
The exhibition also features the names of such remarkable Ukrainian artists of different generations as Serhii Parajanov, Polina Weller, Oleksandra and Ilya Chichkan, Ihor Husiev, Tiberiy Silvashi, Oleksandr Roitburd, Yuri Ilyenko, Maria Reva, Zinaida Isupova, Pavlo Nikitin, and Yuri Vakulenko. Over the years, all of them have paid tribute to the aesthetics of collage, using its technique as something inspiring, driving their creative ideas, and contributing to the discovery of completely new facets of talent.
The exhibition is organised with the support of:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Embassy of Denmark in Ukraine, LESS Triennial of Contemporary Collage, FRONT ART Volunteer Organisation and Abramovych Foundation.
The exhibition is curated by the collector Oleg Vasylenko.
Full ticket price: 200 UAH.
