Political Anatomy. Version" in 91 Galerie
21.02.2024-20.03.2024
91 Galerie, Frankfurt am Main, Schillerstrasse 16
Artist Vlada Ralko, Curator Maryna Shcherbenko, Coordinator Sviatoslav Mykhailov
Political Anatomy. Version (Vlada Ralko. Opening speech)
Why version?
We started working on the Political Anatomy project in dialogue with Volodymyr Budnikov. The first exhibition took place at the Poznań Municipal Gallery Arsenal in the spring of 2023. However, it became clear that this was not the final point, but a stage in the process. Currently, under the name Political Anatomy, in addition to the exhibition, a lecture took place at the Dresden Conference at the Albertinum Museum at the end of last year, work is ongoing on a book, as well as on subsequent works in our artistic practices.
Why political?
We often talk about politicians as a professional caste. The same happens with culture, which seems to be something from the realm of artistic practices. However, a person is a political being since capable of human language, which significantly differs from the language of the rest of living beings. I am deeply convinced that culture is a state of politics. CULTURE IS A STATE OF POLITICS. And art is the language that reveals this state. Therefore, I talk about politics not as the professional activity of political elites, but as the basis of human nature.
Why anatomy?
Anatomy studies the living by dissecting the dead. In ancient times, anatomical exercises were prohibited, and artists studied dead bodies secretly. Partly, the prohibition was due to interference in the secrets of the divine nature of man, hidden under the skin.
The living human body is vulnerable, and this vulnerability is unchanged from the beginning of human existence. The body experiences physical pain, such as now, during the resistance to Russian aggression and the indifference of a large part of the rest of the civilized world, the Ukrainian body suffers and dies not only in battle. Right now, at this moment, Ukrainian civilians are being tortured in the system of torture chambers set up by Russia throughout the occupied territory of Ukraine.
If we consider ourselves human, we cannot separate the mortality and pain of our own body or the body of our family from the mortality and pain of the political body, where suffering and death come not from disease or the natural life cycle, but from injustice.
If we consider ourselves defenders of democracy, solidarity cannot be an empty word for us. In my works, there are many familiar signs that repeat because some of the well-known signs have either become empty or have become objects of manipulation. I do not want to talk only about the horrors of war. Of course, war itself seems impossible. That is, we all know that wars happen, but do not believe that it can happen to us.
Probably, due to a very natural fear, few want to talk about the war and, moreover, think about their involvement in the causes and roots of the ongoing war in Ukraine, actually, in the center of Europe. Because, on one hand, war is not an abstract evil, but a cause of human blindness and irresponsibility. And on the other – war is unpredictable. Political forecasts do not work during war. Therefore, a person in war (and we all now live in the context of war and in wartime) can find support only in their own human nature. This means that the sense of justice equals the chance for the survival of the human race. And the ability to solidarity equals the ability to be alive.
To see! What does it mean to see?
In my latest works, I often compare the shape of the human eye to the shape of Christ's wound. I do this not so much in a religious sense as in the sense of combining vision as knowledge and vision as feeling. In social networks and on the internet in general, images that may too disturb the viewer are covered with a placard with a crossed-out eye and a caption about sensitive content. Thus, infantilism is nurtured in a person when their feelings are tried to be protected as if the feelings of a child.
A few days ago, a photo with a giant crater from a Russian missile went viral. (geographically, this is not far from Kyiv). In the photos taken from above, this crater resembles a huge blind eye.
The eye of the earth.
But we are not blind. We must remember that.
Isabelle Hammer for SCHIRN mag
Ukrainian art in Frankfurt "When Anatomy Becomes Political"
“The art of Ukrainian artist Vlada Ralko gets under your skin - quite literally. At the heart of her drawings and large-scale paintings lies the human figure, which she painterly dissects and brings to light. Under the title "Political Anatomy. Version“, her work is currently on display at the 91 Gallery.”
FROM ALEXANDER JÜRGS
«They are massive, expressive paintings, two or three meters wide, that Ralko exhibits. Striking strokes, strong colours, lots of black, lots of blood red. Smaller works are shown in two room niches: A4 sheets, scenes drawn with ballpoint pen, colored with watercolors. You can see bodies without faces, political symbols from the time of the Soviet Union, hammer and sickle, the red star, next to it the Christian cross, a headless dove of peace. The figures that Ralko draws or paints appear like ghosts, like silhouettes. Vulnerable, numb, lifeless.»