BLOOMSDAY Kyiv 2008 /BLOOMSDAY: Ideal Age
10.07.2008 — 01.09.2008

Kyiv, the 10th of July, 19.00 - "Collection" celebrates the second anniversary of its founding and opens a new project in terms of the world Joyce festival Bloomsday.

Curator: Oleg Baishew. The project expert: Olexandr Solovyov

Illya Chichkan, Oleg Tistol, Arsen Savadow, Olexandr Roitburd, Maxim Mamsikov, Mykola Matsenko, Olexandr Gnylytsky - seven well-known Ukrainian artists created new monumental works specially to the project "Ideal Age". Every participant was quite unexpected: for example, one of the artists used the genre of self-portrait for the first time, the other was impressed by the religious procession, someone returned to the myth space after a long pause and somebody suddenly opened the talent of na?ve painting in himself… But all of the authors that during a long period of time used the objects, installations, performances, culture-agents and worked with different media suddenly chose art and "traditional" canvas. That is how the aim of the project was achieved - the most important Ukrainian artists were fixed in the point of bloom and documented their self-feeling in the modern world. How?

Daryna Zholdak, the director of Collection Gallery: "The choice of the thematic isn't accidently. Middle age is the bloom of the powers and at the same time it's a stop in the middle of the road, time to sum up. Every participant of the project achieved or is a middle aged, the age of Leopold Bloom, Joyce's main hero. Is it ideal? It is the question the authors answer not only with their works but also with…texts. The essential dialogs between Olexandr Solovyov and the participants of the project turned into texts about one's place in the contemporary art and lyrical digression about one's life. We think in 5-10 years it will be interesting for us to check the quality of authors' thoughts, their moods, their evaluation of Ukrainian art-process and forecasting for it ... "

100 pages long catalogue that is traditionally published for every exhibition is worth to be mentioned separately. This time it's more literature edition of the historic value, because the portraits of the artists are created from their texts and are proved by their works.

For the first time Russian galleries take part in the Ukrainian project "The Ideal Age", for example the galleries "Aidan", "XL" and Marat Guelman's gallery that present the best conceptual objects - "Music box" of Juriy Shabelnikov, "Urgently" of Aristarkh Chernishow, "Style and grace" of Oleksiy Politov and Marina Belova. Bloomsday - is an international festival for the followers of Joyce that starts on the 16th of June every year and gives different culture institutions the possibility to realize art and literature projects. Leopold Bloom, the main hero of the novel "Ulysses ", is not accidently compared to Odysseus of Homer. To Joyce's mind Odysseus is whole, ideal hero in the world literature. First of all, he was interesting to Joyce because of the completeness of the life experience, that the artist has to put into words. Joyce managed to create an ideal hero. Collection Gallery addresses his ideal age.

The official opening of the festival will take place at 19.00 at Collection Gallery at the address: Pankivska, 8. The gallery "Collection" is opened every day except Monday from 11.00 to 19.00.

The official drink of the Joyce festival