Ukraine. Une Donation Contemporaine

We continue revealing the creative personalities behind the artists represented at the exhibition “Ukraine. Une Donation Contemporaine” in the Centre Pompidou. 

Yurii (Jury) Rupin (1946-2008) – a rebellious soul, an enthusiastic advocate of the ‘Vremia’ group’s methods and approaches, and a Kharkiv photography chronicler (his novel A Photographer’s Diary from the KGB Archives was published on-line), Rupin based his own work on breaking the Soviet taboos and conventions in art.

In his practice of 1970s he favoured experimental photography. He was the few first Kharkiv authors to master colour photography, both for commercial purposes and for art photography, amplifying the dramatic effects of images. Despite nude imagery was tabooed in the Soviet Union, it is this genre that mostly draws the master’s attention.

Serhii Solonskyi (b. 1957) while being a student attended a cinema club and gradually got interested in photography. He has been exhibited since the late 1980s, drawing the public attention with his collages (Bestiary series).

Solonskyi’s compositions develop the principle of “module collage” based on creating an image by repeating one element (Phallic Heraldry series). His pieces are defined by the inclination towards the surreal vision of body: corporeal metamorphosis are represented not only with the help of montage, but other techniques, such as long exposure. 

Oleksandr Suprun (b. 1945), during the first decade of his creativity, concentrated mainly on straight documentary photography, but in 1975 he found interest in the collage technique, which gradually replaced ‘pure’ shots.

Thus, in his famous Lilies of the Valley (or Springtime in the Forest), the same flower fragment was used 51 times. His personages were mostly elderly people and kids, the most vulnerable social groups, often placed against a sinister-looking urban background with dramatic high-contrast skies.

Stanislav Voliazlovskyi (1971-2018) – the creator of a trend in art called 'chanson-art'. His authentic style corresponds to the style of his hometown Kherson.

It is all about sincerity, self-mockery, black humour, ludicrous funny cases and rumours. Everyday life artefacts, layered on top of horrors from the ‘big world’, transcended to his works in a grotesque manner.

Shylo – a photographic group, known by its bold and critical view on the social processes in ex-USSR. ‘Shylo’ means awl, expressing the group’s intention to pierce the old, played-out, and constrained Ukrainian photographic environment. The group was founded in 2010 by Serhiy Lebedynskyi, Vladyslav Krasnoshchok and Vadym Trykoz.

Serhiy Lebedynskyi (b.1982) – photographer, curator, holds a PhD in Engineering and works as a freelance photographer. His book Euromaidan was published by Riot Books in 2014.

Vladyslav Krasnoshchok (b.1980) – artist, apart from documentary photography, which is aesthetically transformed using different technical manipulations, he also uses anonymous archives and hand-colouring, combines shots with sculptural objects, and experiments with graphic art, engraving and street art.

Vadym Trykoz (b.1984) started as a photographer in early 2007, when he took his first black and white film photography. He likes to discover his own feelings and reflect them through camera.
In the next post we will tell more about the artists from Odesa, represented in the Pompidou.