The Museum of Modern Arts of Ukraine features an exhibition of one the most prominent sculptors of Ukraine, Yuri Zilberberg, from Odessa.
The exhibition will display the graphics of Zilberberg, which is just as good as the sculptures of Zilberberg. The exposition will be composed of more than 30 works from the Museum’s collection.
The dramatic effect, saturation, texture and reaching for conformity in every work of the artist are extraordinary. They are all uttering their life situations and positions through the face of single-step locking: here and now.
Yuri Zilberberg says, “Should we work just for sale and not because of love for the work, the artist will disappear as a species of human race”. Maybe this kind of maximalism is the very reason for such an unexpectedly powerful and fresh sounding of the graphics by the artist.
Every last of his work may be characterized by the presence of spirit. Even in the still life – the objects are falling or overturning. The relations between the characters and building relations with the others is always present as well. Just as it is with the people who habitually are sitting at the table, under a tree, or in the yard (it seems it is on the Moldavanka). And when you are starting to realize the presence of a well-hidden irony or maybe some kind of “Odessa-like menace”, then you are starting to realize all of it.
Yuri Zilberberg does not deal with the “beauty” but with the art. He says, “When you are walking along the streets of the city and see all of it, and you are not able to help those dogs, homeless people… But even they and the rubbish heap have their own peculiar beauty, their own peculiar harmony of forms”.
“Being a sculptor with the God-given talent and with no real chance of implementing his own knowledge, skills, and, what is even more important, vision, Yuri Zilberberg embodied them in his topic – the CITIES. And these cities are sad. The dominating tints are dusky and subdued. It could not have been otherwise as the old Soviet brown paper serves as the bases for his graphics. The modern life in the eyes of the author is “biting”. That’s why the foreground of the cityscape is given to the dogs. Although, while portraying homeless people, Yuri Zilberberg calls them beggars… It appears that sociality is the dominating topic.
Yuri Zilberberg: “You’re walking along the streets of the city, you look, and then you paint. It is all digested in an unexpected way. It can’t be said that the topic prevails over the form – this is a kind of a mixture; it could not be otherwise as one cannot exist without the other. The artist cannot think beyond the formal moments”.
The sociality in the real work of art can never become dominating, while the general message always leads and goes beyond the limits of the image. The perfect technique and presence of the author’s element make these solid and multidimensional graphic pieces unique: they represent the mentality of a majority of thinking citizens of Ukraine. By keeping the “grasping” effect, these graphics show the voluminosity of the world not even in the best time”.
Uta KILTER, art critic
“Gloominess and viability” (a few words about the graphics of Yuri Zilberberg)
The exhibition will take place until the 5th of September, 2010 (small exhibition hall, 3rd floor of the Museum).
You’re walking along the streets of the city, you look, and then you paint. It is all digested in an unexpected way. It can’t be said that the topic prevails over the form – this is a kind of a mixture; it could not be otherwise as one cannot exist without the other. The artist cannot think beyond the formal moments.
