Jan 30, 2020. Text and photo by Anastasiia Perun
Svitlychnyi / Shaposhnykov. It Is A Circle You Will Leave exhibition at National Museum of Ukraine features results of the joint project by Kharkiv artists Volodymyr Shaposhnykov and Yevhen Svitlychnyi. What started as a game of refining each other’s works became a well-developed conceptual approach of work. The artists revisited the imagery of Bible and Ancient Greek mythology and produced around 200 modernist artworks.
Volodymyr Shaposhnykov and Yevhen Svitlychnyi had an interesting artistic method. Rather than working together, they would swap their sketches and finish them individually. They would use this approach both for already existing works and for their new pieces. A true act of trust, it is one of the most prominent examples of the ‘death of the author’ in Ukrainian art. One of the most striking aspects of these pieces is the way the artists explore the interaction between the vulnerability of the paper and the scale and imagery of mural painting.
The exhibition will be available till February 16 from Wednesday to Friday at the National Art Museum of Ukraine.