Research Platform: “Exhibition”, solo exhibition by Lada Nakonechna

In the frameworks of “PAC-UA Reconsideration”, the continuation of exhibitions’ series in PinchukArtCentre, the main idea of which is to research the relations and influences between Ukrainian art scene of today and artistic practices of the past. It shows new works created by new generation of artists inspired by older artistic positions.

The Exhibition by Lada Nakonechna questions the modes of mediating contemporary art within given spatial and ideological circumstances of an art institution. Conceived as part of the newly established PinchukArtCenter research platform and Re-consideration project, it interrogates the complexity of issues related to the methods and mechanisms of visual representation while examining its own predicament within multiple institutional narratives.

The end corner of the fourth floor of PAC Nakonechna’s Exhibition is simultaneously the space and the exhibit, or conversely a complex installation embodied in the institutional structure. It contains fragments and quotations from the artist’s earlier works that become deprived of their former context and, together with supplementary elements, are put into new configurations. The remnants of the artist’s history are exposed to the viewer, although their form remains incomplete. Lada Nakonechna’s artistic speculations depict gaps, alterations and manipulations as integral to the process of constructing history. Her interventions are disturbing, putting the viewer in the position of discomfort and bewilderment in order to provoke and acknowledge his or her active participation.

The installation embraces three massive, diagonal walls with a collection of institutional records displayed on them: notes, sketches, photographs and plans. They all refer to the show pre-conditions including budgeting, institutional program and space articulation.

Pivotal to the show are the two eyeholes mounted in the walls of the exhibition room. One directs the viewer towards the outside of the PinchukArtCenter, whereas the other connects with the neighbouring space in which the collection of PAC is displayed. The intervention underlines the dynamic between art mediated through its agents – such as galleries, curators, collectors, and so on – and the artistic practices that escape formal institutions in order to interact directly with the social sphere. Such an arena of negotiations between the elitist modes of formation of art and its relation with the social and political realm is inherent not only to the individual work of Lada Nakonechna, but also to her collective practice with the R.E.P group.

Curator: Anna Smolak
The visit of curator is provided by the Polish Institute in Kyiv.