Group exhibition within biennale:
ID: E17.8


Title:

Kyiv Bienniale 2017:
Market






Date:
October 27 —  November 9, 2017

Place:
Zhytniy Market, Kyiv, Ukraine

Part of The Kyiv International — Kyiv Bienniale 2017

Curator:
Hanna Tsyba
Architect:
Dana Kosmina

Artists:
Oleksandr Burlaka, Oleksiy Bykov, David Chichkan, Ksenia Hnylytska, Dana Kosmina, Nikita Kadan, Volodymyr Kuznetsov, Sergey Shabohin
Work:
Installation ST()RE №9: Sunset 24 (Sunny Stall)



Sergey Shabohin:
installation ST()RE №9:
Sunset 24 (Sunny Stall),

2017




Explication:
Throughout war and hunger, for several decades the solution to the deficit in Soviet Ukraine resided in the daily market, the form of which has changed very little since pre-revolutionary times. The structures built to house these large indoor markets first appeared in the late 1950s, followed by a wave of construction lasting into the 1980s.

From the late 1950s through 1985, architects and engineers at the Kyiv Zonal Scientific and Research Institute for Experimental Design, theInstitute of Building Constructions, and Prombudproject developed a classification system consisting of suspension roofs, the serial multiplication of which allowed for coverage over an unlimited surface area. For example, Valentyn Shtolko, the participating architect who designed Zhytniy Market, had also developed theoretical blueprints for covering the entire South American continent with tent-like structures. Their programs resulted in designs for 52 markets, 22 of which were realized, including the Volodymyrsky, Zhytniy, Pechersky and Railway markets in Kyiv, in addition to markets in Cherkasy, Kharkiv, Rivne, Sumy, Ivano-Frankivsk, and many other cities.

Today these structures are not formally recognized as monuments to late modernism by Ukrainian law, and are thus often subjected to devastating renovations. The central purpose of the Market project is to draw attention to these structures as rediscovered architectural monuments.

The focal point of the exhibition is its location, Kyiv’s Zhytniy Market, which has existed in Podil since Kyivan Rus in the 9th century and was the epicenter of the anti-Bolshevik Kurenivka rebellion of 1919. The structure currently overarching Zhytniy Market was built in 1980 and is a unique monument to late modernism, or the so-called “International Style.”

Participating artists in the exhibition invite audiences to explore the history of the architecture of Zhytniy Market and to reflect upon the diverse contexts of this unique space in the past, present and future.


Organizer:
Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC)