On April 25, the Art Center Mercury opened the exhibition project “Ratio” by Ukrainian artists Tamara Gridiaeva and Nazar Symotiuk.
Bright Rubik's Cubes shimmer in the hands of adults and children. Scrolling the colored faces in their hands, visitors examine the three-dimensional works of art and eventually begin to create their own installations from them. They assemble a Rubik's Cube - they assemble installations - they assemble ideas and their own ratio.
On April 25, the Art Center Mercury in Lviv hosted the official opening of the “Ratio” exhibition project. It features works by Ukrainian artists Tamara Gridiaeva and Nazar Symotiuk. The project is interactive: visitors can move most of the works and create others in the form of an installation. And at the entrance to the exhibition halls, everyone receives a Rubik's Cube, which becomes each guest's own installation, and it is up to them how they want to assemble it.
“You will read here practically our entire ratio-tradition, starting from the archetype through Suprematism, Constructivism, etc., up to our era. But you will also feel the smell of the wind, observe nature, the sunset, see a bird flying above the ground, and much more. And most of all, there will be interaction with you: one of the halls is designed simply as an interactive game,” Bohdan Mysyuga, art director of the Art Center Mercury, addressed the visitors of the exhibition .
As the organizers of the exhibition project note, the installations allow visitors to discover the idea of rationality as an aesthetic and ideological model, where logic, functionality, purity of form, and minimalism play the main role.
Ukrainian artist Nazar Symotiuk told Gal-info in a comment that he works with wood, so within the framework of the exhibition project he presented works made of this material. The main element of his works are nagels - pegs made of hardwood, which are used to connect large wooden structures. Depending on the composition, the artist combines them in different ways with the plane on which he places the entire composition.
“I generally work with wood, and for me, tactility, the riot of such color, texture, and clear structure are important. The “Ratio” exhibition is about the minimalism of geometric shapes, restraint, about rationality and finding peace and simplicity within oneself. The works are presented in different formats. You could even say this is my first major retrospective, because there is also the work from which I generally started my entire direction and developed it as an author's approach, and there are completely new works that I made specifically for this exhibition. But still, they are all united by my author's handwriting,” the artist shared.
Tamara Gridiaeva , a Ukrainian artist, also told Gal-info that the exhibition project "Ratio" presents her works from different series and periods: from 2005 to the present. All the presented compositions are united by minimalism and simplification, and each work has a Ukrainian theme and individual elements of ornament. In particular, within the project you can get acquainted with the three-dimensional compositions "Horizon", "Black Earth", "Black Earth under the Snow" and "Pyramid".
“The three-dimensional composition “Black Earth” speaks of both the past and the present, because this is black earth, which we have always tried to remove. Now, hostilities are again underway in this territory, there are occupied territories. Therefore, this work is about the present. And the meaning of this composition is that every person has their own soil under their feet, because it is not only black earth. It is generally about soil, about the earth. When every person goes somewhere, they go along a certain path, along a certain horizon, soil. In general, there is something so balanced, symmetrical, rational in all the compositions of this project. Of course, there was a selection of works, so there is almost no chaos here, and everything contains a symmetrical structure,” said Tamara Gridiaeva.
As the artist added, the project also features installation games that allow younger viewers to be involved in the creative process. Both children and adults can create their own ornaments, incorporating their own ideas and rhythms into them.
The exhibition project will last until May 25 at the the Art Center Mercury, located at 10 Mickiewicz Square. The inclusive entrance to the Center is from Valovaya Street. The CIMM is open daily, except Mondays, from 12:00 to 20:00.
Marichka Tvardovska