At opening of Labyrinth-2 exhibition, at Minsk’s Palace of Arts
The Labyrinth annual exhibition features picturesque works by the brightest representatives of Belarusian pictorial art. The project is organised by the Belarusian Union of Artists’ section of painting (the largest section within the association of Belarusian painters). Its title is certainly appropriate, since the event figuratively reflects both similarities and differences of the painters’ artistic searches. First launched last year, the exhibition gained immediate attention.
Its aim is to demonstrate the diversity of styles and genres of contemporary painting while exploring ways to create artistic images, personifying the wide-ranging character of 21st century Belarusian art.
This year’s project shows the widest range of directions — from realism to avant-garde and conceptual art. The Labyrinth-2 exhibition enables visitors to view traditional and radically new creative ideas: the inspiration of artists. Actually, contemporary art is a true kaleidoscope of plastic solutions which is a peculiar feature of modern art. The value of this project is the width of scope of the Belarusian pictorial art as a phenomenon — diverse in senses, forms and goals.
Works by People’s Artist of Belarus Leonid Shchemelev
Gaining familiarity with pictures by modern painters, we all have our preferences, finding own our path out of the labyrinth of aesthetic and conceptual ideas.
The Labyrinth project positions itself as a part of Belarus’ cultural space, so the works for the project were selected via strict criteria, denoting them as national treasures: a legacy for tomorrow.
In hosting a themed exhibition in a small exposition space, it’s impossible to show the full creativity of individual artists via just several pieces. However, if each piece is chosen carefully, the organizers hoped that the exhibited artworks can definitely give insight into the master’s world outlook and their particular style. Labyrinth-2 obviously achieves this, with works that reflect the character and time of their creators.
Still-life by Yevgney Korobushkin
An art exhibition isn’t always a concentration of talented solutions, yet Labyrinth-2 gives all grounds to speak about high creative potential of author’s presentations.
Autumn, by Alexey Koktev
Against a background of globalisation and mass culture, artists must work harder than ever to preserve their national identity and to develop their own creative language, outside of passing trends. Many of those taking part in the current exhibition have proven their ability to defend their originality, regardless of ‘competition’ from mass-produced contemporary works. Technical progress gives us access to more visual information than we can process and makes it more difficult for us to locate that which is worthy of our attention. Fortunately, amidst the ‘chaos’, those with talent and determination do tend to find their rightful place, even if they are initially viewed as archaic or naive.
Belarusians have boasted strong artistic traditions, including in the genre of painting. This is a commonly-known fact, which is proven by international recognition and the presence of highly-artistic works both in expositions of domestic museums and in foreign galleries. The exhibition at Minsk’s Arts Palace is of a standard which would be admired by anyone, anywhere in the world.
By Victor Mikhailov
