Project "Mistletoe"

   In this project, I aim to recount the long-term history of the FGE "marketing" maneuver—an attempt to embed an advertising strategy into various social spheres (beyond the creation of a virtual website). On Olegivska Street, atop large, ancient poplars, one can observe the organic integration of evergreen spheres of hemiparasitic mistletoe shrubs. It is known that mistletoe seeds are dispersed by birds; this example sparked my idea for the art of "marketing" brand communication for the invisible gallery (FGE). By placing "marketing" in quotation marks, the fictitious gallery employs only the formal technique of dissemination, rather than the promotion of an advertising product to satisfy market demand for material profit.

Preceding the development of this "marketing" maneuver were telluric practices such as "The Stop" (Earth) in the form of a large brick billboard, and "Birds" (Air), where FGE-ringed birds defined the ceiling of the non-existent gallery—the sky above the city. In the spring of 2002, I performed the action of "betrothing" the fish: fish released into the river designated the FGE space within the aquatic element (Water).

One summer day in 2002, I met a friend named Slavik on Smirnov-Lastochkin Street (now Voznesensky Descent), who was living under the hill in a dilapidated old house. He invited me into his yard and showed me a cave he had dug into the hill himself in case of nuclear war. The cave was ten meters deep, featuring a room where he had already installed electricity and laid out a brick bed. It was then that the idea came to me to complete the earthly elements (Underground), designating the freedom of the fictitious gallery as an exhibition space. Thus, the cycle of natural elements for FGE branding—Earth, Air, Water, and Underground—was complete.

Later, I became interested in other elements of exchange beyond the natural ones: the socio-urban and the industrial-market. At the time, I was working as a designer at the "Ukrplastic" plant, which printed packaging for various food products. An idea struck me on how to infiltrate the retail network. I designed an ice cream wrapper and, unnoticed by anyone, inserted the marking "FGE 2004". Consequently, the factory printed several tons of film, in which ice cream was wrapped and distributed through the trade network not only in Ukraine but also abroad. Art acts as a kind of ghost and shadow within the matrix.

I wish to cite another parallel project, "Windows and Doors," which fits into the general "Mistletoe" project as a strategy of FGE "marketing" art. This project is ambiguous within the conceptual poetics of urban semantics, which led to a conditional division into two environments: physical and virtual. Let us begin with the physical.

In the late 90s in Kyiv, Anatoly Varvarov and I were walking past a house and stumbled upon a front door with a landing that had been bricked up. We were attracted by the visual resemblance to the very idea of a non-existent gallery; all that was needed was to designate it with a plaque, which was done. This first photograph was published at the time in the magazine Terra-Incognita No. 8 (1).

Later, I began to pay attention to blind windows and blocked-up doors, attaching FGE brand plaques and archiving these reference points of the fictitious gallery's space.

When I created the FGE website in the early 2000s, I began archiving there as well. Thus, the first virtual project, "Windows and Doors," appeared on the site spontaneously. While initially I attached the plaques physically, I later began to "brand" them in Photoshop. I reasoned that for a virtual page, real photographic documentation makes no sense—especially since adhering plaques in inaccessible places was beyond my physical capabilities (requiring at least a ladder), whereas in Photoshop, one could colorize, create colored lighting, and much more.

I am writing this memoir text now, in 2019, but back then, I did not suspect that decades later, large-scale virtual reality would grow to such an extent, and fictitious galleries (2) would appear globally, where artworks exist in JPG format. "The difference between artworks and their documentation images online is collapsing. So is the prestige economy of traditional galleries." (3).

References: 

(1) Terra-Incognita No. 8. pp. 112-113. 

(2) Gallery Fiction. Towards the new technology of art dissemination. 

(3) The difference between artworks and their documentation images online is collapsing. So is the prestige economy of traditional galleries. — Loney Abrams, "Flatland."

To be continued ... >>>

Konovalov I.