FLASHBACK. UKRAINIAN MEDIA ART OF 1990’S

Texts

Oleksander Soloviov, Solomia Savchuk, Ianina Prudenko, Kateryna Stukalova

Bios

Kateryna Tykhonenko

Design and layout

Iryna Kostyshyna

Editing and translation

Khrуstyna Redko, Oksana Khmeliovska, Oksana Shchur

Proofreading

Dariia Puhach

Shots from video works

provided by the authors and from the collection of the “City Media Archives” of the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe

Print coordination

Anna Zatelepa

This project is a continuation of the line of exhibitions Mystetskyi Arsenal encompassing the history of con- temporary Ukrainian art — names, phenomena, schools, periods. Through exhibition research these projects aim to create a visual anthology imbued with new conceptual views, values and meanings.

There are several reasons for the reference to the 1990s. First, the cycle of interest in this complex and ambiguous watershed decade has reached its historical point.

It is understood that the 1990s are already history; it is time for analysis, not just reflection, time to break existing stereotypes and schemes. But the gradation of this return to the 1990s is like a FLASHBACK, a flash of memories of the past — what in cinematography is known as a “reverse shot.” Second, the 1990s were the first decade of Ukrainian Independence. And although contemporary art came here somewhat earlier in the decline of the Soviet era, in the 1990s it gained new impetus for its development as a new cultural identity.

Mystetskyi Arsenal. Kyiv, 2018