Olesia Avramenko, Candidate of Art Criticism, Senior Re-searcher at the Institute of Art Criticism, Folklore and Ethnography of the NAS of Ukraine

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The multimedia project of Victor Sydorenko at the 50th Venetian Biennial in 2003 as the demonstration of the latest model of Ukrainian art in the outer cultural space

The international exhibition of modern art Venetian Biennial has existed for a centennial now; and it is going on to rivet interest of the world art establishment and public as one of the most authoritative. Participation in this forum always was always prestigious; therefore, it should be backed by the state which is represented by the artists.

In 2003 the independent Ukraine took part in the biennial for the second time. This time it was the artistic project of Victor Sydorenko "Millstones of Time".

The general official theme of the 50th Venetian Biennial was defined by its director and leading curator Fransesco Bonami: "Dreams and Conflicts. The dictate of lookers-on."

Well, these two poles-spectator and artist (artistic work)-always displayed opposite interests and sharp contradictions. An artist is a different and unconsciously hostile phenomenon in a society, while at conscious level it is an extraordinarily interesting, perturbing, hypnotic, and repulsive occurrence...

From the very beginning art was a mixture of dreams and conflicts. Conflict between an object and its image, motion and static, light and shade, real and whimsical; material and immaterial / unreal, spectator and artist, artist and customer...

In general the contemporary artist is a

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master, imaginative thinker, psychologist and expert in newest techniques; he/she is an extraordinarily sharp and adroit manipulator. He/she can carefully, though sometimes unaware, manipulate both consciousness and subconsciousness of a spectator.

We think that the problem of dictate of spectator declared for the Biennial is a far- fetched one, especially in relation to the contemporary art. The dictate-of-the-artist problem would be more expedient for now. The spectator's dictate can be but limited, if he is not a customer. If he is a customer, then his dictate is perceptible, obvious, dominant, and undeniable, not always though. However, the Venetian Biennial is the forum of artists and art, which treat spectators either as philosophers and experts in culture and aesthetics, or as experimental objects whose response will be taken into account in subsequent works.

The synthetic project of Victor Sydorenko "The Millstones of Time" shown by Ukraine at the 50th Venetian Biennial is a laconic installation concerning its sense and components.

Initially the project was designed as a mobile variable system, which loses neither sense nor meaning in spite of the changing components. There appear only new accents, nuances, certain qualities which preserve the integrity and depth of the main project.

"The leading idea of the project is the idea of endless, monotonous time that mills, grinds, destroys people, draws them in ever-lasting exhausting rotary movement... However, this monotonous rotation is not senseless: it brings something in the end... In the "Offering" of Andrei Tarkovsky there is a moment, when a boy is insistently pouring water on a dry tree and finally it blossoms out. "(1)

The project consists of the painting on canvas in neoclassical style, desk of the dark plate glass of the same size and form, transparent cone, video and a number of amateur pictures of the 30s to 50s of the 20th c. The transparent cone is the crystal grown with the newest high technology (it is a Ukrainian know-how).

Although a multi-variant project, each time the large transparent crystal in the form of cone should be in the center on a small prop illuminated from beneath by ultraviolet light. This cone is a symbol of communication with the future, like a spaceship of soul that strives for the unknown and like the concentration of all time-the past and the future-in a current moment. It is a kind of a "magic crystal". The artist transforms this scientific object into the artistic one, which becomes the phenomenon of the future. It reminds an old image of the Delphic oracle where the Pythoness prophesied.

The glass mirror object is like a tabula rasa-the surface, on which there appear images to be perceived by a looker-on. Actually, from the multitude of picturesque, real and speculative appearances represented on the canvas, reflected in the mirror, unvisualized, but provoked images the spectator chooses those, that answer his consciousness and subconsciousness, those, which he/she is able to comprehend both within the framework of the project and beyond its limits.

The project of Victor Sydorenko "The Millstones of Time" is a complex and profound artistic and psychological phenomenon. The installation consisting of three basic objects-painting on canvas, "glass" transparent prism-crystal and glass mirror is extraordinarily mobile. The accents in perception and responses are changing depending on the location of each of meaningful components. Each time the big conic transparent crystal concentrates

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and disperses attention and movement of energies triggered by its impact on a spectator and interaction of visual appearances of other objects. The display is accompanied by the musical composition by Alla Zahaikevych.

The artistic work is designed to incarnate the flow of time, its image and ineradicability of motion, its destructive and creative force.

The painting on canvas reproduces the title of the project: the "Millstones of Time". In it time materializes, transforming whether into flour, or dust, "eating" away the surface of the picture, that reminds of an old fresco, and even more, i. e. of the classic composition "Last Supper". But it is an innovative treatment of this composition. The association with the evangelic theme breaks the bonds of the tied secret, which is an exhausting load for some, and bears feeling of advantage above public for others. So, the spectator experiences introduction to the secret and meditative mood, that brings about reflections, associations, and reminiscences.

In a connoisseur (the same philosopher) this display may evoke subconscious associations with the painful past of our people-prisoners, starvation, humiliations and annihilations...-and future born by today's independence.

The bareness of figures is perceived as an openness of that "past" for comprehension. And the future is focused in scientific achievements shown in a cone-crystal, and associated with the utmost purification of human thoughts and feelings. The millstones are represented on the canvas and in the video; they are symbolically linked to the concept of rotation of a big world mill and cycles of world epochs. It is a counterbalancing part of the justice of fate which mills all corn.

The visual-picturesque-philosophical idea of the project is consolidated by the special object, a fantastic crystal that absorbs the ray of light and converts it, as millstones transform corn.

The project is designed as an immersion in a world cultural context and closely related to European traditions and idea of Christianity, which has been very dear for our people for a millennium already. The eschatological motives are not typical of the author. The project is an analytical and optimistic. It is a look forward and attempt to take into account the dramatic history experience.

This complex artistic multimedia project is characterized by a thorough design, mastership and good feeling of style. It seen in everything: artistic solution and choice (in the beginning there were three canvases to this subject), in the selection of pictures, good "pick" of the cone-crystal, and, first of all, in the video. The latter was shot by the professional film director Oles Sanin according to the artist's plan (now known in Ukraine and abroad for his "Mamai"), while music was composed by Alla Zahaikevych. Thence precedes the special quality determined by the magic of exact artistic selection. (2)

Such is the project of Victor Sydorenko "Millstones of Time", presented by Ukraine at the 50th Venetian Biennial. Due to its synthetic and multi-vector character it laconically demonstrates the latest model of Ukrainian art in the modern world.

References:

1. Viktor Sydorenko. The Foreword in: "Жорна часу". Київ, 2003. c. 5.

2. Besides the author himself, there was another curator of the project, Olexandr Solovyov, co-curator Viktor Burlaka, and Olexandr Fedoruk as head manager. The designers' team included Volodymyr Bondarenko, Anatoliy Haidamaka, and Andriy Sydorenko.

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