NIKITA KADAN
Since the early nineties in Ukraine and also in other post-soviet countries artists construct new relations with society. this process started when the entire system of social integration of artists in the soviet union was ruined. That system was determined by the opposition between official art and nonconformist underground art. after the fall of the USSR official and nonconformist positions were both devaluated. the place of art in the whole system of social communication was lost. Contemporary art of the ukrainian nineties presented different models to integrate nonconformist experience with external forms by 'looking like' Western art. After the loss of the familiar social conditions and functions ukrainian artists found themselves in the middle of nowhere. the nonconformist artist thought of himself as an 'agent of the West', but an abandoned agent. Superficial imitation of Western art (always with some delay) was treated as a kind of heroism. the role of the traitor of socialism which nonconformists played free of charge paradoxically made them outsiders when the socialist country was betrayed by the majority of its citizens. But if treason is committed by a majority - is it still treason? Ukrainian contemporary artists of the nineties were treated as parasites in their country.
The loss of the usual relations with society determined the ukrainian art scene of the nineties: a shortage of any personal positions prevented it from building a new strong system of relations.
In the early nineties the centre for contemporary art was founded in Kiev, part of the network of CCAs established by George Soros in post-soviet countries. For many Ukrainians, particularly for the conservative wing of intellectuals soros' centre was a 'base of occupation' while for a small group of ukrainian contemporary artists it was the only refuge. It marked the birth of a tendency we can call the 'migrating monocentrism' of Ukrainian contemporary art. Soros' institution in Kiev was the only central point for the Ukrainian contemporary art community for eight years. there were grants, space for presentations, contacts with foreign curators, attention of the mass media and the public. A Soros centre also existed in Odessa for a short time. Since 2000 the funding of CCA started to decrease and the activity around the centre ceased. the motor of the Ukrainian art-process moved to a Kiev branch of the Moscow Marat Guelman gallery. Guelman at the same time worked as political consultant for the party in power and started businessman and parliamentarian Victor Pinchuk. __
In 2005 the luxury centre for contemporary art founded by Victor Pinchuk became the main source of activity. By this time pinchuk had ended his collaboration with Guelman and Guelman discontinued his business in Ukraine.
Even though these institutions existed in parallel they never formed any system of relations but each claimed a monopolistic position. Ukrainian contemporary artists (consisting of those who started to work at the end of the eighties in Kiev and a few artists from Odessa and Kharkiv) did not produce any alternative activity, a format such as artist-run spaces was not used. After one institution ran dry of resources artists migrated to another, supporting the monopolism. this resembles the soviet system of monopoly in which the state union of artists controlled the sphere of official art. All of these centres were connected with buisnessmen and politicians: George Soros, Marat Guelman, Victor Pinchuk. They were part of their public relations, thus including even that kind of art which was initially independent. In this migrating monocentrism ukrainian contemporary art was simply the same as the art represented in the institution of Soros (Guelman, Pinchuk).
And since the rise of 'contemporary art' (in post-soviet space these words are often used in English to separate 'modern' from 'contemporary' as they are the same word in slavic languages) artists in ukraine avoided to make any analysis of their place in a system of social relations. They took their social autism and status of 'parasite' as the proper thing. The language of contemporary art did not execute its communicative function. 'Contemporary art' just existed.
Now we can or we can not speak about the new generation of Ukrainian contemporary artists which started to act a little before the middle of this decade as if it were something different. We have reasons for both variants.
Young contemporary artists build communities and produce a high level of communication, they create their own project spaces and networks. But they are still engaged in 'migrating monocentrism'. Future polycentrism would mean the necessity of choice, a new level of responsibility and symbiotic relations.