past
The Sweetest Song of Sorrow. Nikita Kadan personal exhibition
14 October —
19 November 2020

selected works

about

 

Voloshyn Gallery presents the personal exhibition of Nikita Kadan entitled "The Sweetest Song of Sorrow". The exhibition will feature both new and older works by the artist. Among them - graphics, photos and installations.

 

"We are talking about the reciprocity of the critical spirit and the spirit of sorrow. About the transformation of the revolutionary force of critical negativity into the passive negativity of endless mourning.

 

The path is illuminated by left melancholy, the politicization of depression, the power of powerlessness, the uprising of pro-cristinators, progressive nostalgia, the indistinguishability of historical and traumatic - a number of hidden quotes can be continued, you have read these books.

 

The younger ones mourn the ruined heritage of the Soviet twentieth century, the older ones mourn the existence of the Soviet twentieth century in general.

 

Here, again and again we read in one of the thematic facebook groups that another mosaic was destroyed, which promised to fly into space just from the firing pit. Another façade is insulated - so eternal today celebrates victory, they rule trizna on the idea of the future. Decommunization is always followed by warming.

 

In the place of historical materialism is a mournful fatalism in alliance with equally mournful aestheticism.

 

Anonymous activists are proposing to cover the figure of Shchors with black latex, and the Institute of National Remembrance supports the idea.

 

It is necessary not to "initiate a discussion" - individual stability in the negativity of each and every one is needed. “No!”, perfect in its confidence. Melancholy and criticism together must form an extremely clear form of pure negativity, seizure, a pit that is essentially the best monument, a perfect form of commemoration, a black hole that absorbs both shame and glory.

 

The dream of the mind is creative, proactive and full of good intentions. We do not need "creative decomunization", but the will to remove our hands from the past in time, which is constantly re-finding its own language in relation to the agony of today.

 

The repetition of mourning rituals, funeral songs put us to sleep. However, we can still turn the ritual against them. Grief for the future is the strongest possible denial of the impossibility of this future.

 

Art shouts "Wake up!" In a hoarse voice, not for the first time and not for the last time in history.

 

 

                              Nikita Kadan