BON VOYAGE

AFFF COLLECTIVE, APO BROCHE,  EKATERINA BURLYGA,  OLYA KROYTOR,  KATYA ISAEVA, KETA GAVASHELI AND JULIA TATARCHENKO

OCTOBER 19
— NOVEMBER 10, 2020

As the title proposes, the exhibition Bon Voyage focuses on the current situation regarding the impossibility of travelling. Metaphorically the artworks are serving a substitute of a personal meeting, they create a dialogue and a possibility to be in touch with artists of different regions and origins – all female, from the so-called Eastern Europe block.

One of the functions of art is to deliver a message, especially in the most difficult (and interesting) times. The works on show are by female artists from Russia, Georgia and Ukraine and deal with the idea of travelling and exploring new horizons, sometimes without leaving one spot and going inside oneself instead of outside.
So, Olya Kroytor’s work The Fulcrum is a performance where the artist is not moving from a high post for the dura- tion of two hours. The work is a symbolic but at the same time physical attempt to find the support in reality, where two basic values are changing; a controversial merging of the feeling of flight and fear of fall results in both personal greatness and total solitude. Limitation and physical borders are guiding us through the exhibition reflecting the circumstances that we are in.

So, Apollinaria Broche plays with the idea of a magic carpet by taking it to the nextlevel – a carpet cut-off in a shape of an airplane is painfully reminding of the beauty of souring in the clouds.
The artists from the very east of Eastern Europe ironically never had a real chance to be showcased in Europe on the scale that they deserve, not at last due to visa issues, cultural policy and customs. The general outcome of the Coronavirus as the impossibility of physical meetings, travelling and international exchange has always been reality for the artists from the represented countries. And so, this exhibition has travelled to Paris through closed borders by all sorts of transportation, via car, train and air. The artists are not present, but their works are and speak loudly. Their voices are inviting for a deeper dialogue.