Mystetskyi Arsenal will present a new exhibition, “Coexisting with Darkness”
On November 9, 2023, at 6:30 PM, we invite you to the opening of the contemporary art exhibition “Coexisting with Darkness”
We will present multimedia and audiovisual installations, performances, paintings and other works of art by the following authors: Tereza Barabash, Sergiy Petlyuk, Dasha Podoltseva and Alexey Shmurak, Anton Saienko, Ivan Svitlychnyi, Fedir Tetyanych, Maksym Khodak, Tereza Yakovyna and Photinus studio.
The curatorial group of the exhibition is Anton Usanov and Natasha Chychasova.
Coexisting with the darkness is something we all had to learn starting in October 2022 and ongoing for many months as Russia systematically shelled critical infrastructure in Ukraine, causing widespread blackouts and disruptions to water, heat, and communications.
The exhibition “Coexisting with Darkness” speaks of a future in which the lived experience of blackouts becomes a reference point for thinking about technology, solidarity, and mutual assistance. A future where futuristic dreams of an autonomous space for experiencing a disaster unconsciously resemble “Points of Invincibility”. About the efforts and care hidden behind the web of electrical communications, batteries, and generators. So what should art be like under these conditions so as not to disappear into the dark? We will search for answers together with you. We invite you to feel yourself in the center of a unique exhibition inside the Mystetskyi Arsenal and to live the experience of coexistence with darkness also through interaction with modern Ukrainian art.
During the exhibition’s opening, at 7 PM, a performance by the artist Maksym Khodak will take place in the space of his installation. Within it, the artist will recreate the experience of a screening in a cinema without electricity, as it was during the constantly happening blackouts in 2022. The artist simulates a blackout situation in a movie theater when a film that has not been shown to the end exists only in the oral accounts of those who were at the interrupted screening. For this, the artist will retell the film that the audience was supposed to watch. The film “Zlyva”/”Flood” (1929) by Ivan Kavaleridze, which is currently considered lost, will be shown.
❗️The exhibition contains installations with a high-level sensory load.
You can visit the exhibition from November 9, 2023, to February 25, 2024.
Working hours: Wednesday-Sunday, from 12 PM to 7 PM.
On the opening day, November 9, the exhibition will be open from 6 PM to 9 PM.
The exhibition was created in partnership with Art Arsenal Community NGO as part of the project funded by aid from the governments of Canada, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States.