Voloshyn Gallery is proud to announce its participation in The Armory Show for the first time, and is happy to present a solo project by a Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova in the Presents section.
Founded in 1994, The Armory Show is the most prestigious art fair in New York, and one of the 5 most influential art fairs globally. This year’s program of The Armory Show brings together approximately 180 galleries from 31 countries. 30 of the galleries featured at the 26th Armory Show have not participated in it previously. We are excited to be the first Ukrainian gallery to be invited to The Armory Show’s main program.
Voloshyn Gallery presents a solo project by Zhanna Kadyrova. The central project of the exposition, The Market (2017-2020), traditionally takes the form of a performance at an art fair. In this work, Zhanna Kadyrova recreates a recognizable pastry shop with all its necessary accouterments, including a glass display, assorted sweets, mechanical scales, etc. The artist manufactures “the foodstuffs” of heavyweight construction materials: ceramic tiles, cement, concrete and natural stone. This time, the artist uses semi-ready-mades: some of the cakes and pastry are made of found demolition waste, such as wall and floor fragments. Additionally, the 5th version of The Market addresses a new political motif. The artist engages with the theme of decommunization in Ukraine. Under the decommunization law, the famous local brand of Soviet Champagne on the updated Market’s counter becomes Sviet Champagne or Sovietic Champagne, highlighting the absurdity of the political course. The artist uses the real brand labels currently produced in Ukraine.
The artist herself, dressed as a saleswoman, invites the visitors of the booth to buy the art objects sold by weight, undermining the current rules of price formation on the art market, and raising the issue of how our understanding of material and spiritual values are formed. The site-specific format of The Market informs price formation: the price for 1 gram of an art object equals 1 local unit of currency of the country hosting the presentation. Therefore, the price for 1 gram in New York equals $1.
Voloshyn Gallery will present an updated, 5th version of The Market at The Armory Show. The first iteration of The Market was realized as an intervention into the sterile atmosphere of ART Monte Carlo fair in 2017. In 2018, it was exhibited at the Kyiv Art Week and at PULSE Miami Beach, where it received distinction from the curators of the Perez Art Museum Miami, as well as the PULSE Prize for the best solo project of PULSE ‘18. In 2019, The Market was presented at the main curator’s program of the 58th Venice Biennale in Arsenale. That same year, Kadyrova presented the 4th version of the project at the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts. The Market is currently being exhibited at Sara Hildén Art Museum in Tampere, Finland.
Zhanna Kadyrova was born in 1981 in the town of Brovary, Kyiv Region, Ukraine. She graduated from the Department of Sculpture of the T.H. Shevchenko State Comprehensive Art School in 1999. A juggernaut behind numerous art groups, exhibitions and performances, she was a founding member of the R.A.P. group. She was awarded the PinchukArtCentre Special Prize in 2011, and the Sergey Kuryokhin Prize in April 2012 in the Public Art nomination for her work The Shape of Light. She went on to receive the Kazimir Malevich Prize in December 2012, and the Main PinchukArtCentre Prize in 2013. She represented Ukraine at the 55th and 56th Venice Biennale. In 2016, Kadyrova’s works were shown at an exhibition at Centre Pompidou. In 2018, she received PULSE Prize for the best solo project at PULSE 2018. In 2019, two of Kadyrova’s projects were presented at the 58th Venice Biennale. Her works can be found in the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), Kunsthalle Praha (Prague), the Museum of Modern Art (Warsaw), and elsewhere. She lives and works in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Founded in October 2016 by Max and Julia Voloshyn, Voloshyn Gallery specializes in contemporary art. In 2015, the Voloshyns made it to the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list.
Voloshyn Gallery showcases a broad range of media in contemporary art, hosting solo and group exhibitions.
Voloshyn Gallery fosters the integration of Ukrainian art into global cultural processes, representing its artists at international art fairs and shows in Europe and the US. Voloshyn Gallery aims to discover exceptional talent, with particular focus on emerging and mid-career artists.
Voloshyn Gallery’s priorities include participation in leading contemporary art fairs. Over the course of the last two years, the gallery has participated in Volta NY, Volta Basel, viennacontemporary, Dallas Art Fair and Pulse Art Fair. The latter brought Zhanna Kadyrova's solo show presented by Voloshyn Gallery the Pulse Prize (2018), as well as the award of Perez Art Museum Miami.
Voloshyn Gallery is a cutting-edge exhibition space located in Kyiv’s cultural and historical center, on Tereshchenkivska Street, in a historic 1913 building formerly owned by a renowned entrepreneur and philanthropist N.A. Tereshchenko.
711 12th Avenue
Pier 90 and Pier 94
New York City
NY 10119, the USA