Exhibition by Melnychuk-Burlaka Group. BETTER, WORSE, EVEN WORSE

February 26 – March 27, 2016
Exhibition by Melnychuk-Burlaka Group
BETTER, WORSE, EVEN WORSE

Visual Culture Research Center and Political Critique invite you to the Better, Worse, Even Worse exhibition by Melnychuk-Burlaka Group, which will open on February 26, at 19:00 and will last until March 27.

In Better, Worse, Even Worse project Ivan Melnychuk and Oleksandr Burlaka use key notions from architecture and urban studies for the interpretation of current political and military affairs. For example, how could it happen that in a political vocabulary the notion of “bridge” started referring to “friendship”, “unity”, “agreement”? After all, from the perspective of architectural history, bridge is, above all, a military tool serving for the expansion to new territories and establishment of effective control over them. The starting point for the project is a current propagandist project of constructing a bridge over Kerch Strait, which has to link occupied Crimea with Russian Federation.

The project is based on a work made for the exhibition Phone Calls from the Cemetery and Other Stories: An Exhibition Against the Covert War in Ukraine at the Academy of the Arts of the World, Cologne (curators – Ekaterina Degot and David Riff).

“The idea of linking two points on the straight line is the realization of mathematical abstraction. The main function of the bridge has been the same – to give war prisoners a work. The following promise of economic miracle is driven by the imitation of a sacrifice. Contemporary super bridges are enormous altars over the sea of blood.”

“The bridge over our heads links Russia with Europe. It is the bridge between two “welfares”. Countries in between are understood by Europe and Russia as dressings supplementing main course.”

Melnychuk-Burlaka Group

The exhibition is open daily from 13:00 to 20:00, Monday – closed.
Admission is free

Melnychuk-Burlaka Group was founded in 2013 (earlier Ivan Melnychuk and Oleksandr Burlaka were members of the Group of Objects). In their practice they question the role, ideology, and responsibility of an architect today. Melnychuk-Burlaka Group participated in the First Bergen Triennial (Bergen Assembly), in the exhibitions of PinchukArtCentre Art Prize nominees in 2013 and 2015, in the exhibition Phone Calls from the Cemetery and Other Stories at the Academy of the Arts of the World, Cologne etc. In 2014 the Island exhibition by Melnychuk-Burlaka Group took place at Visual Culture Research Center.

Oleksandr Burlaka is an architect and artist based in Kyiv, Ukraine. He is a Junior Research Fellow at the National Art Museum of Ukraine.

Ivan Melnychuk is an architect and artist based in Kyiv, Ukraine. He is a co-founder of Method foundation.

Supported by ERSTE Stiftung та Charles Stewart Mott Foundation:

Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC) was founded in 2008 as a platform for collaboration between academic, artistic, and activist communities. VCRC is an independent initiative, which is engaged in publishing, artistic activities, research, organization of public lectures, discussions, and conferences. In 2015 Visual Culture Research Center received the European Cultural Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award. Visual Culture Research Center was also an organizer of The School of Kyiv – Kyiv Biennial 2015.

Visual Culture Research Center (44 Hlybochytska Street, 1 floor)

Contacts:

+380676695457 Ganna Tsyba
+380639535143 Natalka Neshevets
www.facebook.com/vcrc.org.ua
vcrc@vcrc.org.ua