The Masoch Fund is a Ukrainian art association founded in 1991 in Lviv by Roman Viktyuk, Ihor Podolchak and Ihor Dyurych. Its artistic practice is connected with the tradition of European actionism and Nicolas Bourriaud's "relational aesthetics". The Fund is named after Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, which makes a reference to the marginal fields of culture and society and also underlines the locality (Sacher-Masoch was born in Lviv).
The ideological principle of the Masoch Fund is "Aesthetics contra Ethics". [1] Podolchak and Dyurych are called the masters of perfectly elaborated provocations. [2] The Masoch Fund reveals and criticizes the fetishist mentality of modern society [3] and tests the institutional boundaries of contemporary art.
The Masoch Fund focuses on the social, political and economic context of the Ukrainian society. Unlike other action artists whose work often refers to personal experience (Marina Abramović) or mysterial impermeability (Viennese Actionists), the Masoch Fund emphasizes the active role of its audience. It can be best compared to the work of Slovenian artists' collective IRWIN, Danish artists' group Superflex and the tandem of Svetlana Heger and Plamen Dejanov.
In 2006–2010, the Masoch Fund included a subsidiary production company, MF Films, that produced the films Las Meninas and Delirium .
The project involved two stages. The first stage was a personal exhibition of Ihor Podolchak in the outer space. The exhibition took place on board of the space station Mir on January 25, 1993. The project was documented on video [4] (5 minutes). The exhibited objects included Untitled (1990), The Look Through (1991). The third engraving that was planned to be exhibited was dismissed by a doctor from the mission control center due to its explicit erotic content. The second stage involved sending Podolchak's artbook Jakob Böhme to the space station and its subsequent putting into orbit. According to the authors’ conception, the book on orbit would become the first "ARTificial" satellite of the Earth. Technical problems at the space station Mir in the late 1990s prevented this part of the project from being realized. Art in Space project brings up the problem of existence of a work of art outside the cultural context and, to some extent, calls out to revise the evaluation criteria for art.
The work consisted of a jar with lard and pork rinds, an electric hot plate and a photo of the first President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk placed in lard. When the hot plate was on, lard in the jar melted, becoming transparent and revealing the preserved (mummified) image of the President. [5] Mausoleum for the President was completed before the presidential election. It summarized the "romantic" period of the modern history of Ukraine – acquiring independence. The project proclaimed liberation of Ukrainian people from mental constraints which prevented them from gaining real independence. The topic of mausoleum was a provocation that implied historical parallels and political speculations. The work represented a search for the national recipe of mummification (lard and pork rinds are Ukrainian "totemic accessories").
The project was presented by Ihor Podolchak and Ihor Dyurych to George Soros during his meeting with Ukrainian artists. Soros was suggested to build a 40 meters high ice pyramid superstructure over Mount Everest. As a result, the highest peak on the Earth would reach symbolic 8,888 meters – four infinity symbols that would represent humanistic aspirations of the mankind. However, Soros humorously refused to participate in the project.
(German : Zum Tag des Sieges von Herrn Muller) On May 8, 1995, on the anniversary date of the end of World War II on the Eastern Front, 5500 Müllers (bearers of the most common and emblematic German surname) who lived in Berlin received greetings from the Masoch Fund saying “Happy Victory Day!”. [5] The greeting card featured the image of 1945 Reichstag with a red flag and Christo and Jeanne-Claude's 1995 wrapped Reichstag as a supermarket product – the symbols of the beginning and the end of the 50-year-long post-war history. The project deconstructed the image of “winners and losers” in World War II. In 1995, Germany was an economically and politically powerful state, while the Soviet Union that had seemingly won the war already ceased to exist.[ citation needed ]
The Last Jewish Pogrom was announced not as an art project but as a real event. Each spectator had to become a participant and choose the role of either the victim or the pogrom-maker. “Victims” were numbered and bonded to comply with the rules on the “pogrom territory” (not to leave the room, not to consume alcohol, etc.), and “pogrom makers” received a shot of vodka at the entrance. Most participants chose the roles of victims. The actual pogrom did not happen. The Masoch Fund organized an auction, and the “pogrom makers” became “schindlers” (the myth of Oskar Schindler) and ransomed the “victims”. The action raised the problem of responsibility of choice and safety of artistic space.
On the day when Bill Clinton was giving a speech in Kyiv, the Masoch Fund stuck around posters “The Last Concert Tour in Ukraine” featuring the American President playing sax. [6] The official tour of the head of a foreign state was reduced to a concert tour of a mediocre musician.
Curator: Jerzy Onuch. Among the best artists there were presented fictitious works of politicians (Adolf Hitler – installations, actions; Mao Zedong – actions, video art; Nikita Khrushchev – land art, actions; Kim Il Sung – self-portraits); scientists (Sigmund Freud – video art); criminals (Bonnie and Clyde – wedding photo album; Al Capone – “racket art”, etc.). All participants of the project were represented not only by their quasi artworks (which in fact were created by Podolchak), but also by their personalized product brands (Saddam Hussein – perfumes, Ulrike Meinhof – insurance business, etc.) [7] This project of the Masoch Fund was selected for the first Ukrainian exhibition at the 2001 Venice Biennale. [8] [9] After the notorious interference of the deputy prime minister of Ukraine Mykola Zhulynsky, the project was cancelled. [10]
This conceptual project involved several possible scenarios of development of Ukraine, such as “Picturesque Ukraine”, “Masochistic Ukraine”, “Marginal Ukraine”, “American Ukraine”, “Multimonarchial Ukraine”, “Commercial Ukraine”. [11] For example, the “Marginal Ukraine” project referred to border closure, cancellation of diplomatic relationships with all the countries, renewal of the nuclear power of the state, disbanding the governmental bodies, and disintegrating cities into villages. It was proposed to hold a referendum and define the principal direction of the country's development by choosing one of the Masoch Fund's projects.
Ihor Matviienko is a Ukrainian sailor and Olympic Champion. He won a gold medal in the 470 class at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, together with Yevhen Braslavets. He also competed at the 2000 Summer Olympics and the 2004 Summer Olympics. Also, Matviienko is the World and European Champion in 2001. He is a President of the Sailing Federation of the Dnipro, President of 470 class association of Ukraine and Founder of sailing school and club MIR yacht club in Dnipro, Ukraine.
The Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum of Lviv is one of Ukraine's largest museums, dedicated to Ukrainian culture in all its manifestations. It was established by Metropolitan Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky in 1905 and was originally known as the Lwow Ecclesiastical Museum. It currently bears Sheptytsky's name.
Ihor Podolchak is a Ukrainian filmmaker and visual artist. He is a co-founder of the creative association Masoch Fund, and a participant in the Ukrainian New Wave.
Las Meninas is a 2008 Ukrainian film directed by Ihor Podolchak. Its title alludes to the well-known painting by Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas. Ihor Podolchak was the producer, screenwriter, and director of this film. Las Meninas was produced by MF Films. It was the first Ukrainian film to participate in the Tiger Awards Competition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam. As of the beginning of 2011, the film has participated in 27 international film festivals, including 10 competition programs. In 2011, it was included in Top 15 Best Ukrainian films of the 20 years' Independence period.
…Podolchak's film, alongside Majewski's and Bartas's work, appears to be a perfect example for a cinematic or post-cinematic "dream of a gesture" transporting the viewer into a visibly subjective and surreal universe of enigmatic pictures….
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Delirium is a 2013 Ukrainian psychological drama film produced and directed by Ihor Podolchak, premiered in Director's Week Competition in Fantasporto, awarded with the "First Prize" at Baghdad International Film Festival (2013).
Ihor Kaczurowskyj was a Ukrainian poet, translator, novelist and short story writer, literary scholar, university lecturer, journalist.
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Andriy Ihorovych Bondarenko is a Ukrainian composer and pianist.
Merry-Go-Round – a short film by Ukrainian film director Ihor Podolchak, produced in 2017. Producers of the film, along with Igor Podolchak were Ihor Dyurych, Liliya Mlynarych, Max Asadchiy, Serhiy Nedzelskyy. Director of photography – Serhiy Mykhalchuk, art director Svitlana Makarenko. Music for the film was created by Oleksandr Shchetynsky. The world premiere of the film took place on July 9, 2017, in Australia in the program of the IFF in Perth "Revelation". The film was nominated for the National Film Award at the Odesa International Film Festival.
A laconic exercise - only five minutes - by the Lviv artist-expressionist and director of baroque, somewhat, blurred psychodrama, in the genre of video sculpture.
Yaryzhka or Orthography of Slobozhanshchyna is the name of the Russian pre-revolutionary orthography used to write and print works in the Ukrainian language in the Russian Empire. Yaryzhka included all the letters that were part of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet of the pre-revolutionary period: ы, ъ, and so on.
Ihor Ivanovych Ostash is a Ukrainian diplomat and politician currently serving as ambassador of Ukraine to Lebanon since 2016, previously serving as ambassador of Ukraine to Canada from 2006 to 2011. He also served as a People's Deputy of Ukraine from Lviv Oblast from 1994 to 2006. He is a member of the Reforms and Order Party.
Arts of Ukraine is a collection of all works of art created during the entire history of Ukraine's development.
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Natalia Kazymyrivna Basarab is a Ukrainian artist.
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