VICTOR SYDORENKO / NEW ARK
27.02 - 22.03.2009

"New Ark" in Collection Gallery

Victor Sydorenko "freezes" the gene pool for the future

Kyiv, the 27th of February 2009, 19.00 - Collection gallery presents the new sense of time and forms of life in the exposition "New Ark" of the classic of Ukrainian contemporary art Victor Sydorenko.

Frozen look of a dog, turn of the head of a horse, adult human being in the position of the embryo. The main forms of the existence of life in the world that froze suddenly in the ice are for the artist Victor Sydorenko a new experiment in the explaining of Time.
Every time Victor Sydorenko manages to combine the classics and modern ideas, surprise by the combining of classic academic forms with media or sculpture, ideas of the contemporary art with eternal biblical plots. "New Ark" is big by sense and form an installation - cryo-saunas that save the main forms of life on the Earth. The works are mounted into the wall - like stylization of the Noah's Ark- the form that according to the legend saved the humanity, not allowing to end its history. The exhibition is visually supplemented by the shocking video about the process of mummification of a man as the first step towards immortality. The center of the "New Ark" is a big plaster head, material object, modern representation of the "Professor Dowell's Head".
"New Ark" is the continuation of the experiments of the artist with Time and new interpretation of the biblical plots. And if in previous projects Time was considered simply like an endless form, here Time is shown in the sense of eternity.
Victor Sydorenko, the artist: "One of the fixed ideas of the humanity is the immortality of a man, preservation and modification of its gene pool. Religion propagates the way to the immortality of a soul, the science - immortality of a body. "New Ark" is a form of depositary, my interpretation of the tries of a man to safe the genetic material".
Daryna Zholdak, the director of Collection Gallery: It's pleasant to begin co-operation with such a talented author who played an important role in the history of contemporary art, going his own way, without conjuncture or orders of the market. Sydorenko as vice-president of "anachronistic" to my mind Art Academy represents the hope for more qualitative art education, that is oriented not only towards "the academism" of the technique and themes but also towards the ability to think, truly represent the world in all of its interpretations, to put an important question before audience." Victor Sydorenko is one of the most important representatives and the curators of the contemporary art in Ukraine. Being the assistant director of the National Association of the Artists of Ukraine and the vice-president of the Academy of Art of Ukraine, he founded and headed the Institute of the Problems of Contemporary Art. But besides the research and science work he searches for the new forms and sense in his own art. Today his projects combine photo, video and sculpture elements, turning into space objects. The most famous his work is without doubts "Millstones of the time", that was presented in the Ukrainian pavilion of the 50th biennale in Venice, where Sydorenko was the curator together with Olexandr Solovyov. Sydorenko is the author of the well-known sculpture group on the "Malevich Alley" (vyl. Volodymyro-Lybidska) that is nearly the precedent of the contemporary art in the public city space.

NEW ARK
Boundless faith into the possibilities of the scientific progress creates a new type of cult, that gives the future of the world into the "hands" of technologies. In the project "New Ark" frozen in the layers of ice parts of the living nature stand before the audience as a peculiar symbol of the stop of the evolution of the organic tissue and the continuation of the development of revolutionary technologies. The myth about the eternal life finds its embodiment but in some kind another way. Together with the change of context the phenomenon is changing. The subject matter of the project continues the thoughts of the author about the distinction of the consciousness according to the existence and the reality and their projection into the mentality and world-view of a man.
Cryonization of the flesh can be the only one way to look into the future, to save the humanity from a pandemic desease and even to go on trip to the nearest stars to start an extraterrestrial life.
The technology of the deep freezing reminds the Egypt cult of the world beyond, that includes the preparation for the return of the consciousness into the saved from decay (mummified) body.
As in the mentioned cult the eternal life is closely connected to some selection and restricted access. In the case of technologies of the cryonization the main criterion of the selection isn't the level of mastering of the own consciousness as for example in religion but the society status. But maybe it's only the planned lies, exquisite temptation. And the same way it is impossible to convert the desired human qualities, it's impossible to achieve something more than parody or artificial essence of real being. The life itself seems to be mocking at these attempts.