R.E.P. IN HOSTYNYI DVIR

R.E.P. group, Visual Culture Research Center, Right to the City group

July, 11, 2012, Wednesday, 21:30

Video screening of works by R.E.P. group 2005-2012 with participation of Kseniya Hnylytska, Nikita Kadan, Zhanna Kadyrova, Lesia Khomenko

Present compilation includes video documentations of early actions by R.E.P group “Wе will R.E.P. you!”, “Smuggling”, the latest performances from “Mediators” series and two video works – “Superproposition” and “Ukrainian land”. The selection demonstrates the evolution of new engaged art as well as refers directly to the situation of Hostynyi Dvir in Kyiv by posing a question of resistance to aggressive privatization of public space and the role of art and culture in this struggle. Works by R.E.P group raise other social and political problems, which are open to discussion with the authors after the projection.

R.E.P. group (www.rep.tinka.cc) was founded in 2004 during the Orange revolution. Since 2006 R.E.P. group includes: Kseniya Hnylytska, Nikita Kadan, Zhanna Kadyrova, Volodymyr Kuznetsov, Lesia Khomenko, Lada Nakonechna. The group creates installations, drawings, murals, videos, actions and performances.

“Wе will R.E.P. you!” (2005) R.E.P. artists intervened on the territory of collision of communist and nationalist manifestations. The artists presented themselves as an independent political organization. The action led to a conflict between artists and nationalists.

“Ukrainian land” (2010) is a short film showing romantic Ukrainian landscapes accompanied with pathetic music turns into advertisement of the land.

The action “Smuggling” (2007) took place on the checkpoint of the Ukrainian-Polish border. R.E.P. carried Russian petrol in rubber hot-water bottles under their clothes and Russian gas in balloons. The artists also filmed the everyday life of Ukrainian petty smugglers who bind cartons of cigarettes and rubber bottles with vodka to their bodies by sticky tape to carry it into Poland through the border.

Two short films “Superproposition” (2008) are made in the conventions of advertisement genre. The advert aims at potential Polish employers by praising the qualities of illegal Ukrainian workers (low price, absence of rights protection, absence of insurance).With support of F.A.I.T. Foundation, Krakow, Zacheta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, Warsaw (Poland).

Performance “Yodler” (2011) is from the “Mediators” series. Mediators are the folk musicians who belong to different regional and national traditions of traveling singers (including Ukrainian Lirnyk, Armenian Ashug, Kazakh Akin, Polish Pesniar and others). Invited by REP group they are performing in their own way in the streets songs on topics related to contemporary art. In the Austrian city Schwaz Tyrolean Yodlers sing about numerous cases of censorship of contemporary art, trials against the artists and pogroms of the exhibitions.

Hostynyi Dvir (4, Kontraktova Square)