Daniil Galkin - Double Horizon - sorrynoroomsavailable

Daniil Galkin: Double Horizon
Exhibition “Double Horizon”, July 29 – August 10, 2022.
Residence Sorry No rooms available

16.00: Museum of Architecture and Life,
18.30: Cinema Uzhgorod / Diamant,
20.30: Double room, hotel Intourist-Zakarpattia

Continuing to work on the series which researches Soviet-era industrial design items—at this time focusing on stained-glass windows found in hospitals, military commissariats and fire departments—the artist formulates a holistic statement in the context of current wartime. There are plans for a traveling exhibition which would be composed of a graphic art series and would also include salvaged stained-glass pieces to be represented as independent objects meant to serve as a countermeasure to the atrocious reality of war and support peaceful life in Ukraine and Europe.

Black and white reproductions feature stained glass from Dnipro region, with glass sooted and sky blackened with smoke as a result of being hit by shock waves of missile attacks or as a consequence of being broken down and dismantled within the ongoing decommunization program in Ukraine. By transferring fragments of stained-glass panels to canvas, Galkin not only attaches a new meaning to them but also confers the status of artwork which they had never had before.

For instance, the triptych of projects in Uzhgorod begins at the Transcarpathian Museum of Folk Architecture and Customs where the artist builds his statement by focusing, first and foremost, on the exhibition space in which the jewel is stained glass windows strung up to the building’s ceiling—windows which, after new premises were added, lost their initial function and no longer can let in light. Backlit artificially, the items came to life again during the exhibition; their images depicting the “worry-free” Transcarpathian life, counterpoised with copies of stained glass from military commissariats and hospitals in Central Ukraine, build up a complex statement about the state of martial law and the open sky—a “Double Horizon” which is seen from the observation deck of the museum exhibition space in a city located on the boundary of two borders.

The second statement is about interactions with the Uzhgorod movie theater which had been abandoned for over 10 years and borders on the premises of “Almaz” which conceal fragile two-storey stained-glass windows depicting a supremacist design which is made up by glass triangles in a fragmented three-color surface. The performative utterance is supplemented with a video by Pavlo Kerestey in which the artist cleans a Soviet stained glass window. Thus, the temporary access to the movie theater and presentation of the stained glass as a new object not known to the general public continue the exhibition meaning-wise and provide a commentary on the unresolved relations between the developer and sites of cultural heritage.

The triptych closes with the exhibition in one of Zakarpattia Hotel rooms where stained glass is represented as ready-made artwork objects making up an installation: the line of fire and the State Emblem which currently counteracts unprecedented threats to the national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity during the full-scale war of Russia against Ukraine.

Daniil Galkin’s residence was made possible thanks to the support of:

Austrian Ludwig Foundation for Art and Science
European Cultural Foundation

In partnership with the Visual Culture Research Center

The exhibition is part of the residency “Sorry, no rooms available” and was made possible with the support of the program Artist in War, House of Europe, Austrian Ludwig Foundation for Art and Science, European Cultural Foundation / Culture of Solidarity Fund: Ukraine Edition, Uzhhorod vacation house, Transcarpathian Academy of Arts, Regional Palace of Children and Youth Creativity PADIYUN, Asortymentna Kimnata, Every Animal Organization, Pavlo Kerestey and art connoisseurs Kseniia Yevheniyeva and Pavlo Vyshnevetskyy.

Opening of the “Double Horizon” project with an exhibition at the Transcarpathian Regional Museum of Folk Architecture and Life