Vlodko KAUFMAN

The exposition will contain almost 50 works in the series of 2007–2010: “Bird-therapy”, “Eco-theatre”, “Carpathians-chapter”, “Turpentine”.

 Opening date: 02.12.2010 at 18.00

The author will present his performance in the framework of opening ceremony:

The master-class by Vlodko Kaufman is planned for: 02.12.2010 at 16.30

Mykhailo Shevchenko, director of the museum:  “This is the first major presentation of the works by one of the most interesting modern artists, Vlodko Kaufman, in Kyiv, and we are very happy to have it in our museum”.

Tanya Gruschenko, curator of the museum: “The exposition of the exhibition is a free depiction of Vlodko, an act of creation, an act of action”. He submits a kind of a peculiar “documentation”, or “vydyvo” as he often calls it, to the approval of the audience after having worked on it for more than five years. The performance, which is going to be presented at the opening of the exhibition was planned specifically for this exposition, it is a kind of tonometer – the beginning of the public show”. 

Vlodko Kaufman: “I’m not drawing, I’m growing… just as the circles stratify around the tree I lay new and new spheres of substance and meaning…”.

Bogdan Shumylovych, art historian:  “… Vlod Kaufman – is an artist working with the gesture, performance, installation, etc.  His topics have nothing to do with WEB 2.0 identity in the network or manipulation of consciousness – they are more kind of oldfashionly modern: transparent vital recollection of the pine tree, fish, and pear, that were not present in the steppe-like Kazakhstan – the birth place of Vlodko.  Metaphorically speaking, this is the forest, water, and fruit, which is not always bringing a kind of cognition but satisfaction as well. This is where we get the constant striving for understanding all of these phenomena / elements or an attitude of a human towards them. However that’s where we have the need to comprehend the phenomenology of tree, fish, or pare and the attempt of recreating them not through the means of descriptive art but through growing or creating them – just as it is done by the nature… This reminds me Joseph Boys and his references to personal metaphors (grease, wool, honey, or feather) in art as well as the feeling of blind alienation of modern human from the nature and an attempt of entering it anew, on the level of shamans. Just as Boys, Vlodko is a performance artist (one of the most interesting Ukrainian artists in this genre) and many of his performances are peculiar shaman expressions building or returning the feeling of the thing that was once lost by the human and what the human is constantly trying to find/return. By studying from the nature, he brings the understanding of the fact that there is no art – there is only a creation, building up, growing, plurality, and conversion – everything is like it is in the nature. The difference between Vlodko and Boys lays in social activism or messianic rhetoric which distinguished the German artist. Vlodko Kaufman belongs to a series of Ukrainian artists who don’t pay much attention to the spread of their ideas, advertising, or selling himself and rather trying to work in the spirit of man of the sixties: the art which is scarcely needed for the most part. The same situation is with the Fluxus, letrism, or other vanguard trends which have already become the classics of art.   

Vlodko has clearly traced his paradoxical ontological favor of Fluxus esthetics, supreme modernism, and personal reflections not only about the art but about the life as well taking his plurality into a series of works like “Bird-therapy”, “Carpathians-chapter”, or “Turpentine”. Does his art has anything to do with the representation or creation of reality, or is this anything else? In 2010 the VI Biennale of Modern Art in Berlin went under the expressive motto – “what is reality” and “do you believe in it?”. The Week of actual art in Lviv, which was held during the same week, went under the title “abstract vs real”. We can also list a number of projects related to the topic of reality and representation of personal and social, art and popular. Vlodko is not dividing the situation into the reality and its “representation”, copy or reproduction. He’d rather spend most of the time in reality and his works are its continuation, his work is following the same principle as if the chaos was reforming into orderliness in our universe. Should we try to recall Boys once more, as he believed the major task of the art was to transfer the life into art and the people into artists, he resembles Vlodko as he is trying to change the reality for himself, he’s not drawing but growing, he’s not constructing but forming the “vydyvo”, he’s not representing but surviving.

This is where it is important to understand the elements of Kaufman’s esthetics: plurality, augmentation-growing, “vydyvo”. Plurality of the works, typically related to a certain subject (tree, bird, turpentine) and has no ending. It is sometimes hard to divide them into separate works as they are physically interrelated and emotionally chaotic series that will not come to an end after the exhibition and that were not prepared for the exposition or sale – these are the inner works with the internal logics and their own separate world. Growing is the way of creating these worlds, where Kaufman is trying to avoid the representation tools (he’s not actually using brushes or other tools, instead he is applying the paint in a sculpture-like way) spending a lot of time to create an object by applying more and more layers, scrapping and transforming the initial layers until the final exhaustion. “Vydyvo” is Vlodko’s esthetics element which is based on the idea that the work of art is a kind of syncretic creation which resembles a theatre (we should remember the “vydyvo” of the eco-theater back in the forest at the border with Poland, where Vlodko has put a tree in the total observation focus). The notion of “vydyvo” is close to the original forms of the art with no clear division between the act, gesture, matter, contents – instead it is formed into one comprehensive body.

I can’t say that Vlodko’s language of art is provocative, though it is really touching with its own personal temper as he’s speaking ironically, but almost invisible – it is rather some kind of total therapy. His art possesses an effect of primordial energies, it resembles a Christmas carol that you have long forgotten but the sound of which is letting you feel the return of the world of integrity and maturity. The only difference between his trees and the real trees is the thing that they belong to the world of art and the rest is there – in the work: energy, logics, illogicality, curiosity. He’s fascinated with the true power of nature and her ability to amaze while trying, almost romantically, to return the nature to the human and human to the nature.  He is creating a kind of non-art which is still the very art, reality which may be literally called art. (From the article to the exhibition catalogue, Museum of Modern Art of Ukraine, 2010).

Vlodko Kaufman was born in 1957 in Karaganda (Kazakhstan). He graduated from Ivan Trush School of the applied and decorative art (1974–1978) and Lviv Polytechnic institute (architecture, 1978–1980). He is a member of the artistic society “Way” (1989-1993). He’s one of the founders of the Artistic Association “Dzyga” (1993) and the Institute of current art (2007). He’s one of the ideologists and organizers of the “Week of modern art in Lviv” (2008, 2009, 2010).

Personal exhibitions and projects: 1993 – “Letters to the citizens of the Earth or the Eighth seal”, geppening, Art gallery in Lviv; “Incomprehensible ruin”, exhibition and installation, Art gallery in Lviv. 1994 – “Mirror carp”, geppening (transformation), Znesinnia park (Lviv); “Birthday”, geppening, Porohova Vega (Lviv). 1995 – “Food”, performance, art shop of E. Myska (Lviv); “Trance comedy”, performance, Art gallery “Dzyga” (Lviv). 1996 – coffee-club “Babylon XX…”, comprehended kitsch, “Ukraine” cinema (Lviv); “Retrospection”, performance and installation, Art gallery “Dzyga” (Lviv). 1997 – “Filling versions”, installation, Art gallery “Dzyga” (Lviv). 1998 – “The return of Icarus”, art-mix, Art gallery “Dzyga” (Lviv); “Dairy”, (together with N. Shymin), performance and installation, Art gallery “Dzyga” (Lviv). 1999 – “Time constant. Vydyvo I”, Art gallery “Dzyga” (Lviv). 2000 – “Second Hand (from the second hand). Vydyvo II”, Art gallery “Dzyga” (Lviv); “Grasping of time. Vydyvo III”, Art gallery “Dzyga” (Lviv). 2001 – “This is not yet a freedom…”, art-provocation on the streets of Lviv, vydyvo, Art gallery “Dzyga” (Lviv); “Mirror cross” – exhibition and installation, Art gallery “Dzyga” (Lviv); “And you Bruno…” – exhibition and installation, Art gallery “Dzyga” (Lviv). 2002 – “Mechanical anatomy of sound”, performance and installation – object, Porohova Vega, Kyiv highway, 10 km. Gamaliivske peatbog; “A game of game”, polygraphic project, Art gallery “Dzyga”. Publishing house “Az-Art”; “Technology of delicacy”, installed painting, Art gallery “Dzyga”, “Census” (Kyiv); 2003 – “No named spring”, exhibition and performance, State Theater For Young Audience (Lviv); “In the focus of a dream”, installation and performance, club-gallery “K-11“ (Kyiv); “In the memory of Duchamp”, performance, club cafe “Lialka” (Lviv); 2004 – “Citation for birdhouses”, installed graphics, objects, photo, club-gallery “K-11“ (Kyiv); “Fall of the flight”, performance, video-art. 1^st part – Striyskiy park (Lviv), 2^nd part “L-art” gallery, (Kyiv); 2005 – “Citation for birdhouses”, installed graphics, objects, photo, club-gallery “Alchemy” (Krakiv); “Fall of the flight”, performance, (Krakiv); 2005-2006 – “Disposal of nostalgia”, installed art, Art gallery “Dzyga”; 2006 – “Citation for birdhouses”, installed graphics, objects, photo, Art gallery “Dzyga”; 2007 – “Carpathians-chapter”, art, installation, Art gallery “Dzyga”, 2008 – “Everyday tour” – performance, “Sacred Poltava”, installation in the framework of “Art-Depot” project (Lviv); “Declaration of emptiness” – performance in the framework of “GogolFest” festival (Kyiv); “The exhibition in the clock”, performance and video-art in the clockwork mechanism of Drogobytska town hall as part of the III International festival of Bruno Shultz (Drogobych); “No name”, installation, performance, “Week of current art” (Lviv); 2009 – “Chessboard”, performance, “L2” project (Lublin); “Bird-therapy”, installed graphics, Art gallery “Dzyga” (Lviv); “Chessboard”, performance, “Week of current art” (Lviv); 2010 – “The time of fish”, performance, “Shultzfest-2010” (Drogobych); “An attempt of presentiment”, installation, international art festival “Fort.missia” (Popovychi, Mostyskiy district. Lvivskyi region); “No name”, installation, performance, “Week of current art” (Lviv); performance on the opening of memorial plate on the place of death of Bruno Shultz (Drogobych).

The exhibition is conducted under the patronage of Art Union “Dzyga”

“I’m not drawing, I’m growing.., just as the circles stratify around the tree I lay new and new spheres of substance and meaning…” Vlodko Kaufman