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In a way that is both clever and humorous, this Ukrainian collective contrasts the Western art tradition with that of its own country.Kharkiv is one of the industrial centres of Ukraine, and also it just so happens to be one of the country’s most productive cradles of artistic talent. Many internationally renowned contemporary writers, musicians and artists were born in this eastern Ukrainian city with its broad panoramas and neo-classical soviet architecture. In 2005, Mykola Ridnyi and Ganna Kriventsova opened their own laboratory space called SOSka in Kharkiv, in an attempt to appease society’s hunger for contemporary art. That space existed until 2010 and intentionally focused on projects expressing radical statements. Today, SOSka group comprises three artists in their thirties (Serhiy Popov, Mykola Ridnyi and Ganna Kriventsova) who not only claim that art ought to be avant-garde and socially engaged, but also ought to be really lived. Unlike many of their Ukrainian colleagues, these artists are very aware of art historical developments after modernism and the contestable nature of universal truths. This makes their art compatible with an intellectual and culturally aware audience (or potentially intellectual and culturally aware audience) in their home country and abroad. The etymology of the group’s name should be explained at this point, as it reflects the group’s view on the position of young artists in Ukraine. ‘SOS’ stands for the need that creative minds have of love and understanding. Furthermore, ‘soska’ is Russian for ‘rubber teat’ and thus relates to the naïveté of young artists. In Russian slang, however, the term refers to somebody performing fellatio in exchange for favours, which should describe how the starting artist feels towards gallery-pimps and collecting-punters. Funny, funky and thoughtful, SOSka’s work juxtaposes the beliefs, traditions and lives of their post-Soviet motherland with the Western world, such as in their most known work, Barter (2007). This work is the first part of the triptych Barter/Memorial/Distance, which traded copies or photographs of famous contemporary artworks in exchange for agricultural goods in Ukrainian villages. Interestingly enough, contemporary art seems to be better received by Ukrainian grannies than by cultural officials. SOSka group’s curatorial project The New History (2009) survived no longer than a day in the Kharkiv Museum of Art, being shut down after the museum director claimed, ‘That’s not work, but rubbish’. The group’s idea was to create a dialog between the museum’s classically oriented collection and contemporary artworks, none of which was of a provocative nature. Memorial (2009), the work selected for the first international biennale in Ukraine this year, is a more successful collaboration with unexpected partners. SOSka group hired professional funeral mourners to bewail 20th century art, from Duchamp to Hirst. This led to the creation of a multimedia installation depicting old woman in their homes weeping over projections of the world’s freshly sanctified art treasures. The authenticity of what is generally believed to be a true and deep emotion, but is obviously available for sale, is a leitmotif of the group’s work and also central to Distance (2011), the last part of the triptych. For this piece, SOSka group recreated their Kharkiv gallery space in Moscow Museum of Modern Art. There they installed photos of themselves with Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami. These are not only the world’s blue chip artists, but also the darlings of Ukraine’s richest contemporary art fan, Victor Pinchuk, who founded the Pinchuk Art Centre in Kiev and set up an art award for young artists. By bringing together two non-connectable poles of the art community in an act of fake friendship and exaggerated expressions, the artists expressed their doubts about the sheer possibility of the existence of something deserving to be called an art community.Ekaterina Rietz-Rakul is a writer and critic from Germany/Ukraine. Steve Schepens is an artist and critic from Belgium/Germany. They are co-founders of the ESc Art Centre in Lviv, Ukraine.

Ekaterina Rietz-Rakul & Steve Schepens

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