“Practices of Recognition. The ‘Defloration’ exhibition” is a new exhibition in the Mala Gallery of the Mystetskyi Arsenal

Laboratory of Contemporary Art “Mala Gallery of the Mystetskyi Arsenal” presents the first part of the long-term project “Practices of Recognition” dedicated to rethinking the key exhibitions of the 1990s. It is titled “Practices of Recognition. The ‘Defloration’ exhibition”.

The exhibition will open on March 28 at 12:00 p.m. and run until April 28, 2024.

The focus of the first part of the project lies in the “Defloration” exhibition which took place in 1990 at the Lenin Social and Cultural Centre in Lviv. Initially known to a small group of people, “Defloration” eventually became a phenomenon for both contemporaries and future generations.

The work on the exhibition in the space of the Mala Gallery is structured around the term “defloration”. According to the original exhibition participant Platon Sylvestrov, it stands for “permanent love” and “infinity” having no beginning or end.

Through discussions and working with archival materials, the project’s curatorial group and the invited contemporary artists set up a space of intergenerational dialogue. It serves to reflect on the connections within the communities, small gestures of defiance, inner anxiety, searching for balance in a fragile reality, the ephemerality of established stereotypes, and the inner will to change.

Exhibition participants: Ola Yeriemieieva, Yeva Kafidova, Nastasiia Leliuk, and Maria Matiashova
Curator: Anastasia Garazd
Manager: Olena Kryvoruchko
Coordinator: Andrii Myroshnychenko
Mentoring: Oleksandr Soloviov and Natasha Chychasova

Laboratory of Contemporary Art “Mala Gallery of the Mystetskyi Arsenal” expresses its gratitude to the Center for Urban History of East-Central Europe, Heorhii Kosovan, Oleksandr Soloviov, and Oleksandra Kushchenko for supporting the project and providing assistance with archival and research materials.

The exhibition poster uses a frame from a video that belongs to Heorhii Kosovan and is stored in the Urban Media Archive of the Center for Urban History.

Curators of the “Practices of Recognition” project: Anastasia Garazd, Olena Kryvoruchko, and Andrii Myroshnychenko
Mentoring: Oleksandr Soloviov and Natasha Chychasova

The exhibition will open at 12:00 p.m. on March 28 and last until April 28, 2024, in the Mala Gallery of the Mystetskyi Arsenal (Lavrska St., 10).

Working hours:
Wednesday to Sunday, from 12:00 to 19:00
Free admission.

We draw your attention to the fact that this exhibition includes 18+ content.

❗ We care about everyone’s safety, so in case of an air raid alert, the exhibition will be closed. At this time, you can go to the nearest shelter. The exhibition will start working after the end of an air raid alert.

Curatorial text

It often may seem that daily efforts for one’s closest environment or community have no impact on the future. In the same way, stories, meetings, and spontaneous actions, which once took place situationally and were relevant for a certain moment, appear to be a kind of humming amidst a new accelerating reality. In the history of Ukrainian art, such a feeling of uselessness and loss is constant. Therefore, it leads to the systematic forgetting or disappearance of whole layers of knowledge that could help us better understand ourselves today. As a generation that did not experience the 90s, we learn about this era mainly from stories and involuntarily construct mythical worlds around it. Consequently, these impressions exist in parallel with the de facto reality of those times. Through the “Practices of Recognition” project, the curatorial group, together with the project participants, is seeking to bring the 90s closer to themselves, delve into this context, and understand how that era influenced today’s practices. The stories of the exhibitions of those times are a reflection of certain phenomena and concepts that were born then but can now be looked at from a greater distance.

The first part of the “Practices of Recognition” project is the “Defloration” exhibition which took place in Lviv at the Lenin Social and Cultural Centre in 1990. At that time, it was held rather as an experiment between friends and for friends, with no pretentiousness. Remaining known to a small group of people for some time, only later did “Defloration” become a phenomenon both for contemporaries and future generations.

Referring to the term “defloration”, one of the original exhibition participants, Platon Sylvestrov, interprets it as “permanent love” and “infinity” having no beginning or end. It seems that the Lviv exhibition should be perceived in the same way: the five gallery halls of the former Lenin Museum became a point that brought together underground artists from the local artistic community and was filled with new meanings. The works by four artists, Ihor Shuliev, Platon Sylvestrov, Oleksandr Zamkovskyi, and Andrii Sahaidakovskyi, redefined the space of the ideological machine that was living out its last years. Therefore, the symbolic act of defloration, performed by artists, personifies love since loving means being free but also accepting the freedom of another. Looking back at “Defloration” now, more than 30 years later, one can notice a desire for change and an act of inner will and freedom. All of it constitutes the foundation that we, as a community and a society, still rely on.

Together with contemporary artists Ola Yeriemieieva, Yeva Kafidova, Nastasiia Leliuk, and Maria Matiashova, the curatorial group sets up a space of intergenerational dialogue based on archival materials and research. Through it, they are gradually trying to come closer to understanding their identity. Inviting young female artists to perform this act of endless love was a crucial element of the project since women were often excluded from the artistic context of the 90s. Therefore, reconsidering “Defloration” now, the artists talk about connections within the communities, small gestures of defiance, inner anxiety, searching for balance in a fragile reality, the ephemerality of established stereotypes, and the inner will to change that we embody through love.