‘RESTART ODESSA’. GROUP EXHIBITION. CURATOR – ANATOLIY DYMCHUK
(25.12.2009-26.01.2010)
Sometimes it seems to us that our history has come to an end and there will never be flickers of light at the end of the tunnel because we are not in the tunnel but in a blind alley with no way back.
Everything comes to a stop or, as PC users say, “hangs”. In such cases it’s recommended to scan the computer and to treat or, if necessary, to delete the virus-infected files.
We can also choose another risky but rather efficient way of overcoming this “dead zone” – “to restart”, to begin from scratch. Here it’s very important to decide where this “rescue point of system recovery” is. It’s very important to find the very beginning, from which we should start our activity.
To overcome the stagnation in the formation of urgent art in Odessa there are three anniversary dates.
1909.
100 years ago “Izdebskiy Salon” was opened. It presented in our city the constellation of artists from Paris, Munich, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Odessa. Works of most of them consigned to the treasure-house of world art. “Izdebskiy Salons” became one of the historical pulses that further the birth of Odessa non-conformism in 1950-1970s.
1989
20 years ago Odessa Art Museum housed the exhibition “After Modernism”. The exhibition represented Odessa in the Ukrainian “new wave” as an independent trend.
1994.
15 years ago the festival “Free Zone” took place in Odessa. Most of the artists, who are presented by “Restart” now, (with the exception of the youngest) exhibited their works at this festival but unfortunately few people in Odessa wanted to accept them as stars and future stars of Ukrainian art. During 2000s modern art in Odessa revealed itself as more or less (unfortunately more often less) successful episodes. There are many artists who live and work in Odessa but the bright urgent art process, which in the previous decade was the object of friendly envy for artists from Kiev and Moscow, breathed its last breath.
The project “Restart” is the breakthrough of principle to the reinstatement of Odessa as an evident and significant point on the international map of modern art. We again assemble outstanding and young artists. We try to unite “non-venality” of urgent range of problems with competent art-management and acknowledged commercial wealth of stars of Ukrainian modern art ( it seemed impossible in 1990s).
We assemble stars in Odessa not for the sake of our status but to contribute to the rebirth of creative atmosphere in our city. Only art can solve unsolvable problems. On condition that this art relies on cultural basis. Even in spite of repulsion.
We again do what we should. And come what may.