maria kulikovska + oleg vinnichenko
This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience
OK
254.
Act of Solidarity
For the period of one week, the artist stages this action | performance for the Neue National Galerie in Berlin as part of the Gallery Weekend against the backdrop of Russia's war of aggression against the sovereignty and population of the Ukrainian state. Berlin, Germany. 2022
254 is Maria Kulikovska's number as a registered refugee from the occupied Crimea since 2014.
«254. Act of Solidarity» is a reenactment of Maria Kulikovska's performance «254. Action» that was held during the opening of the biennale of contemporary art Manifesta'10 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in July 2014. At that time, the artist was laying on the stairs of the museum in the wounded soldier position, covered by the Ukrainian flag. The performance ended with the short-term arrest of Maria Kulikovska, as a result of which the Ukrainian artist was added to the list of banned artists in Russia.
The war. The war's duration and consequences. The destructive inhumane nature of war. The war is one of the main issues of Maria Kulikovska's creativity. Inability to come back and to lead artistic activity in native Kerch town was plunged into the artist's skin, it made hundreds of scars. It still makes the senses of Kulikovska's identity bleed. The lack of "alive" place on the artist's body-memory became one of the reasons for the reaction and creation of the artistic actions and performative sculptures. For the artist, they are the method of react, fight, heal, exempt, identify, return.
«254» is a long-term art project of Maria Kulikovska, in which were created two sculptures-molds of the artist's body in the lying-down position. In 2018, the artist created a series of silkscreen prints on the basis of photographic documentation of the «254. Action».
«254. Act of Solidarity» is a reenactment of Maria Kulikovska's performance «254. Action» that was held during the opening of the biennale of contemporary art Manifesta'10 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in July 2014. At that time, the artist was laying on the stairs of the museum in the wounded soldier position, covered by the Ukrainian flag. The performance ended with the short-term arrest of Maria Kulikovska, as a result of which the Ukrainian artist was added to the list of banned artists in Russia.
The war. The war's duration and consequences. The destructive inhumane nature of war. The war is one of the main issues of Maria Kulikovska's creativity. Inability to come back and to lead artistic activity in native Kerch town was plunged into the artist's skin, it made hundreds of scars. It still makes the senses of Kulikovska's identity bleed. The lack of "alive" place on the artist's body-memory became one of the reasons for the reaction and creation of the artistic actions and performative sculptures. For the artist, they are the method of react, fight, heal, exempt, identify, return.
«254» is a long-term art project of Maria Kulikovska, in which were created two sculptures-molds of the artist's body in the lying-down position. In 2018, the artist created a series of silkscreen prints on the basis of photographic documentation of the «254. Action».
"Now, I don't protest. Now I lay and listened to life: the bells are ringing, but not because of an air raid signal, no—it's called to pray and just a tradition. Somewhere very close, construction workers are making noise—they are building something new and beautiful. Cars are honking at each other—because they are in a hurry, someone laughs. The children ask in German why someone is lying on the stairs... And I lie and think that my body is bruised, it hurts—then I will get up and leave soon, because I am alive, because I can get up... and what about those who will never stir again, because they are killed with an insidious cynical war, like those who have been sitting for 61 days and do not see the world, because the Russian genocide in Ukraine. And like all those who are in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Poltava, Sumy, Odesa..., all over Ukraine hope that everything will end soon And how are those who now live somewhere in a foreign land and are waiting... And how are all those who are sitting in the trenches for our sake, for the sake of peace in the entire democratic world, and every minute of life is a small victory.
Now I'm not protesting, yes, now I'm jealous that they just live. Now we are all in great pain, we are all traumatized, but we have to live" - Kulikovska.
Now I'm not protesting, yes, now I'm jealous that they just live. Now we are all in great pain, we are all traumatized, but we have to live" - Kulikovska.
