Amateur Rake

Culture & Science
8 September 2013, 15:33

Antresola is the sixth annual art show. This time, it features Hrabli – the rakes – a project of young graduates of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and the exhibition of the best works in the studio collection. In previous years, Olena Zamostian Art Gallery exhibited graphics and collages. Now, it features about fifty paintings created by different generations of Antresola graduates.

Antresola can be described as an amateur project since the artists involved in it study sociology, biology and computer science at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Not all of them even took painting classes before taking up brushes and paints. But where exactly is the line between amateur and professional art?

The studio that has just celebrated its tenth birthday hosts three to five projects a year. Its portfolio includes space arrangements for poetic performances of Yuriy Andrukhovych and Serhiy Zhadan, ArtPole and Accumulator festivals, and more. Some of Antresola graduates now study in art schools abroad, and some have already created several individual projects. “This studio is a very important educational experiment,” says Antresola graduate and indie artist Maria Pavlenko. “The one-for-all study course in Ukraine can kill the sprouts of artistic talent and freedom. Instead, artists need education in the format of liberal arts so that they can later choose where to develop independently.”  Genuine art is an experiment where artists go beyond things that were created before and are considered professional, so they sort of get into the amateur territory. For Antresola, an experiment is its individual style.

One of this year’s Hrabli artists, Halia Osadcha, is an IT professional. She says that she does not transfer mathematical formulas on canvas on purpose – reasonable algorithms emerge spontaneously. Olha Oharenko who has a degree in environment studies dissolves human life in mysterious serenity of elements. Masha Kinovych who studied culture plays with concepts of identity and transcendence.

“If I saw these works in a European museum I would definitely qualify them as brilliant contemporary art,” says Larysa, a visitor. “They are all deep and mature.”

 

1-8 September

2013 Contemporary Art Week

Around the town

(Lviv)

One of the largest contemporary art projects in Ukraine, the annual Contemporary Art Week in Lviv offers art as it is today – without improvements or distortions. To experience this personally, you would have to visit several art platforms scattered all over the city during this one week in September. Streets and squares will turn into locations for installations and performances, rooms for exhibitions of photographs and paintings, stages for theatre plays, improvised movie theatres and workshops. Hundreds of artists from Ukraine, Poland, Netherlands, UK, Israel and Canada will participate in the art marathon.

 

From 5 September

FutureShorts – 2013 Velvet Season

Kyiv movie theatre

(19, vul. Velyka Vasylkivska, Kyiv)

This fall, the Indian summer will begin with the demonstration of the best short films of our time, all award-winners at major film festivals. They have toured movie theatres all over the world. The latest compilation is traditional comprised of six films, including American family melodrama Boneshaker; Spanish comedy Lahuida (Escape) about details that matter by Victor Carrey; Icelandic animated movie The Pirate of Love about the love of a truck driver for the girl Sherry, and the British drama Volume that keeps the audience fascinated up to the last episode. 

 

Through 15 September

Icon. Relic

IconArt gallery

26, vul. Virmenska, Lviv

Lviv will soon host an exhibition of icons by the Polish artist Kristof Sokolowski. His paintings are a masterly combination of an icon painter’s meditation and an explorer’s curiosity. Critics describe this original style as the artist’s visual language which he uses to transform the approach to understanding sacral images and symbols. Sokolowski’s artwork does not simply reflect his ideas. The artist creates images through conflicts, thus testing his own moral values and encouraging the viewers to take a deeper insight into theirs. 

 

12 – 15 September

2013 Jazz Koktebel

Park at Maximilian Voloshyn’s museum-home

(vul. Naberezhna, Koktebel)

The eleventh annual jazz festival is bound to change the way people interpret jazz rhythms and open more than just music to everyone who comes to Crimea for these three days. The festival fans will once again meet by the Voloshyn Stage, Open Stage and Nu Jazz Stage that will feature Simon Green, a British DJ better known as Bonobo; Norwegian trumpeter Nols Petter Molvaer; and the original Ukrainian pianist and vocalist Pianoboy. Many more artists will help create the vibrant jazz atmosphere in Koktebel this year.

 

12 – 15 September

20th Book Fair & Literature Festival  

Palace of Arts

(17, vul. Kopernyka, Lviv)

Lviv will once again host arguably the biggest literature happenings of the year. This time, the Intrnational Book Fair and Literature Festival celebrates its 20th birthday. Visitors can choose between numerous events, over 10,000 new books and 250 autograph sessions. More than 318 writers from over twenty countries will be at the forum this year. This is the first time it will have a Honorary Guest Country. Poland will be one this year. It offers a programme of forty events and meetings with 45 Polish writers.

 

13 – 22 September

GogolFest

Experimental Mechanics Plant

Vydubychi metro station, Kyiv

Despite financial difficulties, GogolFest as a remarkable cultural happening will take place this year again. Ten festival days are an open platform for the craziest art ideas. In addition to the traditional theatre, music, visual and film programmes, this year’s festival starts the MakeLAB workshop where people can create things with their own hands, Eco-Programme as a continuation of the Green Gogol project and CircFabrique – a series of breathtaking acts from the best circus performers.  

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