Why did you set up the IZOLYATSIA art center?
It is a philanthropic project. And philanthropy is like a drug. People in Ukraine know little about it, but in a liberal democracy your role in society is not determined by your wealth, but by what you contribute to society. We want to surround ourselves with people who understand that waiting for the government means waiting a long time.
How did locals react to the art center ?
Six hundred people came to IZOLYATSIA’s first project. People had been tricked so many times that they found it hard to believe the space was going to be for the public and that I wasn’t just going to start selling pictures. Four years later we are receiving thousands of visitors per day.
What is the significance of the factory site?
The working conditions were brutal at the ironworks, but no one asked to see passports so migrants fled there— people could work in the mines without being asked about their past and multiple cultures coexisted together.
IZOLYATSIA strongly adheres to the site-specific principle: everything that happened at the foundation while we were in Donetsk had to be tied to the local environment. Thus the factory site was the main protagonist and inspiration in all of our projects. My personal life story has also been closely linked to that site; my father was director of the factory for nearly 60 years. So the site was more than just a location— it was our raison d'etre. Its loss dealt a huge blow to the foundation.
The collection features a lot of Soviet realist works, what drew you to these?
In the 1990s I began searching for socialist realist paintings of the Donbass region. The search grew out of an almost accidental encounter with one of the canvases inconspicuously hung at one of Donetsk mining offices where I was negotiating a contract.
Overall, I amassed 187 artworks from the period. The oldest examples come from a Kharkiv artist, Victor Mironenko, who traveled to the Donbass region right after WWII to witness and depict massive efforts of industrial restoration. The latest ones come from Vladimir Bauer, a local Donetsk artist who depicts the region’s industrial landscapes but using an art vocabulary alien to the socialist realist paradigm.
Can you explain the significance of the loss of the works destroyed by separatists?
Unfortunately, a significant part of the collection was lost during the military seizure of IZOLYATSIA's premises by the pro-Russian separatists in June 2014. Moreover, many of the significant art pieces could not be transported in the first place as they were created as an integral part of its architectural structures. These included installations and large scale embedded objects by Daniel Buren (France), Cai Guo-Qiang (China), Leandro Erlich (Argentina), Kader Attia (France), Pascale Marthine Tayou (Cameroon-France), Zhanna Kadyrova, Hamlet Zinkovsky (Ukraine) and others.
Some of the artworks that remained on our property have been brutally desecrated. Maria Kulikovska'sHomo Bulla, a set of human size soap sculptures scattered around the site, has been used as a shooting target. The exhibition space that held Kader Attia's Ce N'est Rien installation is now a prison and interrogation center. In June 2015 DNR militants blew up Pascale Marthine Tayou's Make Up...Peace!installation.
IZOLYATSIA is in the process of compiling a list of its lost artworks. A considerable number of artists who have previously collaborated with foundation are helping, either by restoring some of the lost pieces or substituting them with their new works.
What hopes do you hold for the future of the foundation?
Our chief mission is building bridges with those that stayed in the occupied territories. Whether the central government has figured out if the occupied territories still belong to Ukraine or not, we, on the contrary, don’t have the slightest doubt. It remains our motherland and we will - brick by brick - build a bridge that we will be able to cross one day.
Today, Ukrainian culture is located only in Kiev. We can hardly talk about culture in reference to the industrial south-east, to the abandoned industrial towns. As much as we can, we are trying to engage in enlightenment. But everyone understands that global questions of cultural politics and education must be dealt with by the central government. A systemic approach is needed. Hotbeds of culture such as IZOLYATSIA cannot fundamentally change anything. But in the end, as Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote in Love in the Time of Cholera, in the most sorrowful of times a flag of love and hope must be raised.
How important is it that the Kiev biennale goes ahead despite rumors of cancellation?
It's crucial to continue cultural activities of various kinds. After all, art is not entertainment. It's a critical tool to make sense of the world. Art is of paramount importance, irrespective of whether the times are peaceful or bellicose.
