The newly launched Kiev Biennale signaled its seriousness in joining the fray of international biennial exhibitions by choosing a serious curator to helm its inaugural 2012 exhibition. David Elliott, the founding director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo as well as the curator of the well-received 2010 Sydney Biennale “The Beauty of Distance,” is bringing the Kiev Biennale’s focus to its area of origin by featuring a large number of local artists among projects by stars like Yayoi Kusama, Paul McCarthy, and Raqib Shaw.
Elliott’s exhibition, the exhaustively titled “The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Rebirth and Apocalypse in Contemporary Art,” looks at the Ukraine not simply as a relic of the Soviet era, but something more complex. The country was “on the Silk Road, it had Mongols, it had Westerners going East, Christianity came to Russia through Kiev...” the curator told ARTINFO. "It has always had this very deep culture." 22 of the biennale’s 100 artists are from the Ukraine and 12 are Chinese, with the remainder ranging from Bulgaria and Albania to Turkey and Kazakhstan.
The exhibition will be mounted in Kiev’s Mystetskyi Arsenal, a national culture complex founded by Ukrainian art philanthropist Victor Pinchuk and housed in an armory erected in the late 18th century that later became a Soviet factory. The 20,000 square meters of floor space will be filled with work that responds to the mammoth architecture. “You can’t put little things in the space and expect them to look good,” Elliott said.
Among the biennale’s highlights will be a tunnel of pink and black polka-dots from Kusama, an iconic sculpture from McCarthy entitled “The King,” featuring a silicone model of the artist naked, and a wall painting from Greek artist Stelios Faitakis depicting Ukrainian history. Ukrainian artist Oleg Kulik, best known for performing as a dog, will contribute an immersive video installation. Fred Tomaselli has created a new series of paintings responding to the theme of the show, and Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov will present a new series of photos documenting decaying Soviet factories.
The biennale will open on May 24 and run through July 31, alongside “Double Game,” an exhibition of Polish and Ukrainian artists also hosted in the Arsenale, as well as an exhibition of Anish Kapoor at Kiev's PinchukArtCentre. The event promises to provide a unique look at international contemporary art without losing sight of a local perspective. “You have to work from where you are,” Elliott argued. “You can’t just parachute shows in.”
The full list of artists in the 2012 Kiev Biennale can be found below. Click on the slide show for a selection of works in the show.
