VYSTAVKA-CHITANKA (exhibition-reading)

What can be read? What can reading be? The exhibition about reading and for reading presents the statements of the artists in one way or another, woven with the text.

“Discursiveness is always already materialistic, and materiality is always already discursive” (Karen Barad). Despite the topical questions of theory, in everyday life the “always already” is still some sort of science fiction, while writing, reading and other discursive skills are a practical necessity for symbolic existence within the professional field. But our curatorial ambition is also to master it for fun!

Should an artist trust theory? Test constructions in practice? What artistic questions can be applied in dealing with the gap between theory and practice? How to set up a communication space between the professional fields of artists and theoreticians? How to practically root material-discursive approaches within the feminist theory and art — “articulating matter and meaning together” and what meaningful role does silence have in them?

Participants: Uliana Bychenkova, Welcome to the Doll House!, Katerina Lisovenko, Lisichki collective, Nastya Teor, Natasha Chichasova, Friedrich Chernyshev, Anna Scherbyna.

The exhibition was carried out as part of the bridging feminisms project with financial support from the German Foreign Ministry.

In the exhibition space, a series of readers' meetings were also held on the topic of positionally different relationships between textuality and visuality (objectivity, tactility) in the artistic and theoretical practices of contemporary feminist art.

Uliana Bychenkova, Katerina Lisovenko, Nastya Teor, Friedrich Chernyshev, Anna Scherbyna. Zine “Mass Uncovering”, digital printing, 2020.

Anna Scherbyna. “A thing”, painting, pieces of broken pottery, text, 2020.

Welcome to the Doll House! Text “Exercise Girlfriend”, print on a risograph, 2019. “Found duet”. Diptych, floristry. 28 x 28 cm each piece, date of creation not established, approximately 1990–2000s. The objects were found on the second hand market “Sirius”, Kyiv, 2020. Conceptual note “Objet Trouvé!!”, print on a risograph, 2020. Zine “Guidelines from Strawberry and Water”, print on a risograph, 2020.

Nastya Teor. “Shy flirting with the guards”, print, installation, text, 2020.

Katerina Lisovenko. “Fairy tale”, paper, acryl, ink, text, 2020.

Natasha Chichasova. “The letter I don’t want to send, but which I want to make visible”, text, 2020.

Lisichki collective. Zine “The body as rose-woman candle”, 2016. Digital printing, 2020.

Photo: Natalka Dyachenko