icons \ medium

Turi Simeti (IT), Alexey Buistov (UA), Teymur Daimi (AZ).

Curated by Tiberiy Szilvashi (UA) and Alexey Buistov (UA).

Modernist theorists absolutized the medium. As Clement Greenberg wrote in his "Modernist Painting", “It quickly emerged that the unique and proper area of competence of each art coincided with all that was unique in the nature of its medium.” Can a medium talk about mediums of other nature while remaining true to its own resources? Obviously, an operation of some kind is taking place inside the artistic autonomy – extraction of the “other” in every medium through visual calls-and-responds that enable their dialogue. How can a technical medium (a photo or a video) of technogenic background, corresponding with the current temporal order, say anything about painting - a medium that initially entailed manual practice of trust and time dilation as a principle? What are their contact points? This is what French media researcher and byzanthologist Marie-José Mondzain says on this topic:  “The meaning of the visible is in the invisible; the meaning of the audible is in the silent. Greek “EIKON” expresses well what the word “IMADGIO” lost in Latin: it concerns an indecisive and fragile visibility, similar to the fact that we do not see the indecisiveness left for us to judge. Buistov’s photos, Turi Simeti’s objects and videos by Teimur Daimi use light as the basis of their medium. “Light painting”. From an absent, imaginary object of “painting” they extract its sublime, metaphysical light. The quintessence of the nature of painting. These mediums talk about the true nature of painting as a medium with resources of the technogenic era.

Tiberiy Silvashi.

***

More than half a century ago Clement Greenberg has proclaimed the medium-specificity thesis, which isolated artistic media from each other, leaving them to solve their problems all alone. According to the medium-specific modernist canon, painting can not engage in any kind of representation, since it is the task of photography to represent the visible reality. In this context, the KNO exhibition “ICON/MEDIUM” can be seen as an attempt if not to overthrow, then at least to call the Greenbergian dogmatism into question. KNO's first multimedia exposition ever, combining painting, video and photography in one space, is a communicative experiment. Experiment in bridges building, in common vocabulary searching. After all, having begun to overcome the uncommunicativeness with the wall tapping dialogue, maybe the time will come that walls don’t exist?

Alexey Buistov.

Partners: Mikhail Bulgakov Museum.

Media partners: Kyiv Daily

Mikhail Bulgakov museum

Andreevskiy Descent, 13

Kiev, Ukraine.

Opening September 22th, 7-9 pm.

On view through October 20th.

Open hours: 10am–6pm.

Closed - Wednesdays.

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