"Semirenka" / sculpture

"There exists a belief, handed down from ancient magical treatises, that during a full moon, a mole emerges from underground and dances around a dandelion. What unites them remains unclear."

After the destruction of the brick Semiryonka, I realized that to balance stability against the onslaught of the crowd, a reinforced concrete structure was required. This time, I wanted something profoundly volumetric and semantic, accumulating energy within and radiating it outward—something built "for the ages."

For such a massive task, an abstract structure composed of three simple geometric forms (circle, triangle, and square) connected by threads, with each side measuring 108 cm, fit the bill perfectly. Hence the name: "Trinity."

For those wishing to learn the historical significance of simple geometric forms and the number 108, I suggest Googling it. To be honest, I do not fully understand my own creative potentials myself, but it was interesting to gain fresh experience each time. At the same time, I expended considerable personal resources on calculation: the concept-form, parameters, dates, and—most importantly—the location. Naturally, the materials and labor were provided at my own expense.

Based on past practice, I began to notice two types of people among the visitors to my objects, divided into binary opposites: us/them, minority/majority, unusual/simple, educated/zeros, etc. My desire was to unite them through a third party—the landscape and the sky—and this is exactly what happened.

When a person is institutionally educated in art, gazing at a work triggers a search for resemblance to what is already in their memory; yet such people most often frequent exhibition halls, attend lectures, read books, etc. For this environment, I needed to name what I have been doing for many years, aside from the self-organization "Fiction Gallery Expedition." A wandering definition amidst the evolutionarily blurred boundaries of Western models—"Land Art," "Public Art," "Environment"—all similar, yet not quite right due to the specificity of the exhibition site. So I went further: if the objects were built exclusively on hills, and the panorama of the environment plays a mutually important role, why not call it HILL-ART? Especially since this highlights the ancient city of Kyiv.

On the other hand, for the majority of those "zero" viewers visiting these objects, the author's meaning is absolutely irrelevant; they birth their own interpretations and names. For example, Trinity became a "Three-wheeled self-propelled vehicle." And since humans are often endowed with fantasy and a belief in something miraculous, a kind of "fixation" occurs—either on ready-made practices like religions and teachings, or on their own convictions. Surprisingly, there were those who spent several years trying to unravel a system of "quests," linking it to my previous objects. They crawled all over the nearby hills, communicating on forums, unaware of the work's relationship to contemporary art, arriving at scientific conclusions, and in this sense, forming their own value system from scratch. But when they found out it was the handiwork of artists, they were often disappointed—"Oh, I get it, just art."

Ultimately, my concrete object Trinity became the most popular among my previous urban sculptures (and those joint with V. Zaichenko), acting as an interactive field for information exchange.

Here is a glimpse of the diversity of this communication:

• The film Urban Landscape (fragment with Trinity at 32:05);

• Tours of Mount Shchekavytsia, Praktika forum;

• "Sex in the City: Where to do it 'quick'";

• Quest-walks with Google services and the "Interesting Kyiv" project.

To be continued ... >>>

Konovalov I