Oleksiy Say
«New Landscape»
March 17 – May 23
We are surrounded by the occasional, temporary phenomena.
And we aspire to ignore and to exclude them from our worldview.
Although their continuous presence makes me think that it is the fabric of the world which we see as transitory, but some phenomena we consider as constant, completed and others are not.
Sometimes I feel responsibility for all bad things that can happen and do happen in the world, and sometimes it looks like I cannot answer for anything at all. Frequently, it comes around when I see construction sites, many of which will become much uglier upon completing than they are now.
We must find the strength to live in the process. The result may not satisfy expectations and the life time will be lost.
Oleksiy Say
On the 17th of March Dymchuk Gallery opens a solo show “New Landscape” by Oleksiy Say.
The project will feature more than 10 works of different years, which are united by a common plot. This subject is the fixation of a hallmark of the modern urban landscape – the construction site – in the artist’s typical technique.
The project offers a viewer, who is also a permanent recipient of the new landscape, to set his optics in a certain way. City people are often irritated and dissatisfied due to inconveniences caused by building and to constantly changing landscape, conflict of historical buildings and typical contemporary high rises, default of a coordinated plan, spontaneity that is peculiar to our region and lack of authorization of the conducted works.
Say, in his turn, offers to have a look at the construction site from a different perspective. The framing of the unfinished building and the construction cranes appear to us as a temporary phenomenon, but “there is nothing more permanent than temporary” and the urban landscape is constantly changing throughout the history of mankind. Therefore, a phrase from a famous pop hit song of the past «We Didn’t Start the Fire» was taken as a track accompanying the exhibition.
“New Landscape” does not propose to make up mind to thoughtless buildings that are directed at getting maximum profit and destroying the unique appearance of cities across the globe. Transformations of the urban landscape are inevitable, but are not necessarily negative and destructive. For this reason, it is worth to focus on formulation and abidance of clear criteria and rules in reconciliation with which architectural changes might occur. This is essential in avoiding of being caught in in the concrete jungles of business centers, where is no public space and individuality.
Oleksiy Say born in 1975 in Kyiv. Graduated from the Kyiv Art Industrial Technical School, Department of Graphic Design and from the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Architecture, Department of Easel Graphic. Lives and works in Kyiv.