Ruslan Vashkevich introduced 'Hunting for the Minotaur' project in Kyiv

One of Ruslan Vashkevich’s new projects - “Hunting for the Minotaur” was presented by Collection Gallery during the annual international contemporary art fair “ART-KYIV contemporary” in November 2010.

We’d like to give it a closer look and publish a number of photos as well as art critic's discourse about the underlining idea.and  the concept of the project. It also worth mentioning that the project was created in technical collaboration with another Belarusian artist, Alexander Bartashevich.


This story is not about the journey of Theseus to Crete but about art. The lead character is the artist. Location - the second reality, a maze of fiction. Nine compositions are the labyrinth’s paths, where the protagonist wanders. They constitute a single route. Three monumental panels are the open areas with the remnants of Romanesque architecture. Six other canvases impersonate dead-ends with the false targets, that our hero baited for the Minotaur. But the beast doesn’t leave the den to look for the hunting man and is not waiting around the corner – it simply doesn’t exist.

 

 

"Hunting for the Minotaur” actually is a hunt for the myth, the search for a universal and at the same time a sacred plot. It’s the campaign for the secret force, for living and dead water of the mythology that supports the bloodstream of art.

But the myth was killed long time ago by the ironic musing. Artistic reality has lost its power source and has lost its credibility. Not the plausibility, but that supreme credibility, which communicates the presence of mystery to our life. The world without mystery looks like a labyrinth without the Minotaur. Then it’s mere a static matter - beautiful, but dead architecture. This is the world without challenge, without adventures, without sacrifice. It is safe - and ontologically empty. The artist is looking for a high-risk adventure; she strives to fight the chaos, but finds the backdrop of the noble pile of ruins. Empty frames of cathedrals and coliseums, dead arch ribs - that's all that remains of the temple of art.

The paradox is that the artist roams in a pseudo-reality that he created with his own hands. The artist tries to discover something that she’s already killed. This arcane plot, for which the artist is hunting for doesn’t exist for one reason: the artist has repeatedly replayed all the arcane scenarios - he overplayed them and won. Caught in a void, "without God, without inspiration”, the artist feels the shortage of something important. She’s sick at heart for real, she’s seriously looking for a loss - and still wants to play, fox and laugh. And the artist is playing. He self-mockingly portrays himself as a Quake’s character that has an option to switch between weapons. Sets targets-traps with gitchy female posters in the center. Face, boobs, back, buttocks - catering to every taste. But all they are decoy-ducks.  A sacrifice to Minotaur, this legendary hecatomb of human souls has been reduced to a fake sex clichés.

It’s clear that these surrogate sacrifices won’t bring the Minotaur to life, won’t raise his bloodthirsty temper from oblivion. And it is clear that the artist isn’t as stupid as he seems to be, and understands that her activities are useless and his intention has no purpose. But that’s the activity, that’s the intention. After all, as it has been already articulated by men of genius -  all art is quite useless and beauty is pointless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Hunting for the Minotaur" includes
- 3 panels – 240x360 cm, 360x280 cm and 320x240 cm, oil on canvas, 2010
- 6 paintings-“targets”, 150x90 cm each, oil on canvas, 2010