“If you watch international news, Kiev looks like some kind of dead zone,” artist Zhanna Kadyrova told me as we defrosted over lattes in Na Stanislavskogo, a hip café that models itself after the Soviet intelligentsia, with vintage couches and shelves full of quirkily omnivorous reading materials. Last year, Kadyrova had won the PinchukArtCentre’s award for emerging Ukrainian artists, and she was shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize. I asked her if the association with the center’s founder, Victor Pinchuk, came with any backlash in a time when oligarch-bashing was all the rage. She didn’t hesitate with her reply: “I wouldn’t have been able to make a single work this year without Pinchuk’s support. Besides, no one really has any beef with Pinchuk. He keeps a low profile. He’s not trying to run the country, like these other guys.” Once known for throwing lavish bashes (who else could have Daniel Craig and Nicholas Serota rubbing elbows in a marionette museum?), the art world’s friendliest oligarch has indeed dialed down on extravagance, avoiding the power grabs of national politics and shifting his focus on his charities and art—itself an increasingly unpopular pastime. According to PinchukArtCentre’s deputy artistic director, curator Björn Geldhof, attendance has dropped by 40 percent over the past few months. “There’s this misconception that art is unnecessary or frivolous right now,” Geldhof lamented. “Thankfully, it seems people are beginning to realize that they need to breathe, too.”
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 04:37:30 +0000
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