What happens when the nation's oligarchs become interested in art? Ukraine gets OligArt, which is what it is being blessed with now. It is a mixed blessing, critics say.
For instance, on a sunny September morning, an aspiring artist took a suburban train from her village of Muzychi near Kyiv to board a private jet. The painter’s name is Alevtyna Kakhidze. The owner of the plane is Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest businessman. If this sounds like a modern Cinderella’s journey to a business presentation, this was very close to it.
At the airfield, Kakhidze, the 36-year old winner of Malevich art prize in 2008, launched the oligarch’s new program called “i3 [idea, impulse, innovation]” to sponsor modern art in Ukraine. It was Kakhidze’s dream to feel what it’s like owning a plane and creating art on board. Akhmetov didn’t give her the jet, but forked out $10,000 for the flight to feed her muse.
The novelty of the project was not in the plane, but in the fact that Akhmetov joined the art patrons’ club in Ukraine. The billionaire built his fortune in steel during the fall of the Soviet Union, snapping up state assets on the cheap during the nation’s crony capitalism days, and has since diversified his portfolio with media, telecommunication and hotel businesses among others. He also owns Donetsk football team Shakhtar.
Investing into modern art is fashionable, yet still controversial. “With all due respect, rich people are far from the art and cultural process,” said art expert Evhen Karas. Running his own modern art gallery, he said that usually patrons “give money to close friends or those [artists] they like, with rare exceptions.”
Alevtyna Kakhidze
Rich Ukrainians who accumulated their wealth during the violent 1990s know little of Ukrainian avant-garde. Brought up in Stalinist utilitarianism, many never learned to appreciate modern shapes and forms. But just as hamburgers replaced home-made cutlets with the advent of a free market, the modern art trickling in from the West challenges old perceptions.
Akhmetov, more known as a football fanatic than an art connoisseur, didn’t show up at the airport to present his “i3.” Nor did he explain what motivated him to spend $62,500 this year and almost $500,000 for 2011 to inspire more experiments in art.
Project manager Olesya Ostrovska-Lyuta said the project was still in the works, but there are three categories for art institutions, individual artists to conjure up something new and individual professional travel. “We are doing several experiments like funding individual projects, which are hard to predict.”
The outcome of the football matches is also difficult to forecast, and yet Ukraine’s richest man regularly shows up at the pitch of his $400 million stadium in Donetsk to see his team play. Nevertheless, Karas said it was important to encourage Akhmetov in his effort to discover new talent and help Ukraine make a name in modern art.
Unlike Akhmetov, Ukraine’s other top wealthiest businessman, Viktor Pinchuk, likes to monitor his art personally. He stepped into art philanthropy in 2007, opening arguably the largest center of modern art in Central and Eastern Europe, which also bears his name. He spent $4.6 million on the center in its opening year and has been pumping money into it ever since to bring in big shots such as Damien Hurst, Jeff Koons and the like.
“Any kind of competition in the field of philanthropy will have a very positive outcome,” said Dennis Kazvan, spokesman for the Viktor Pinchuk Foundation. To compete though, Akhmetov needs his rival oligarch’s publicity, which is often fed by controversy. Art fans form long lines in front of the Pinchuk gallery daily to see modern oddities in action.
There are other businessmen in Ukraine wanting to compete in sponsoring art. In May, Andriy Adamovsky, a real estate owner, opened the contemporary art center M-17. Its minimalist interiors in blinding white seem to copy Pinchuk’s center. Adamovsky has a soft spot for Ukrainian avant-garde of the late 19th-early 20th century.
Ukrainian sculpture art has a sponsor in the face of Ihor Voronov. With a stake in an insurance business, he likes to collect and exhibit sculptures. Another businessman, Sergiy Tsyupko, diversified his business in jewelry and banking by opening the Museum of Contemporary Painting Art in Kyiv this year. The wife of Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Sergiy Tigipko, Viktoria, organized an international film festival in Odesa this summer. The list goes on.
“Each philanthropist goes through the same stages to become a full member of the art community,” said Karas. “He starts with collecting art objects, then sets up a gallery to show what he’s got and then ends up contributing to trends in the cultural process.”
Akhmetov, it seems, is still testing the waters. His foundation restored a couple of museums, including the Metropolitan’s House – a part of St Sophia’s National Reserve, which is on the UNESCO’s heritage list. But financing young artists seems a riskier plight than dusting old relics or purchasing new footballers.
Painter Kakhidze left Akhmetov’s jet plane empty-handed. There was no painting, no sketch, not even an idea. To the dismay of many, she said: “I felt so calm on the way to the airport and in the sky but now I have to account for this tranquility. What have we done on the plane? We were there. There is no result. I have nothing to show for what actually happened there.”
The project managers explained further that it was one of the tasks of modern art to provoke debate. The cost of this debate though was $10,000.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Gnativ can be reached at [email protected].
