Fedir Tetyanych grew up throughout World Battle II within the village of Kniazhychi close to Kyiv. There, by means of his early contact with land and nature, and towards the backdrop of the armed battle (as a toddler he was injured by a bit of a projectile), his idiosyncratic notion of rural cosmism and human duty for the encircling world took kind.

As an artist, Tetyanych labored towards the constraints of varied ideologies and disciplines. He was an writer of monumentalist mosaics and ornamental panels within the Soviet period, a chronicler of Ukrainian indigenous cosmologies and Cossacks’ anarchist historical past, a joyous performer, author of cosmist and ecological manifestos, egalitarian hoarder of objects and an activist who wished to show landfill websites and factories into theatres. All these labels apply but collectively fail to embody Tetyanych’s nonconformist legacy and prolific output.

Within the Sixties, the artist started his first State commissions for monumental decorations in public area, which he typically created utilizing discovered objects: discarded industrial waste, scraps of steel, cans, screws and shards of glass. These supplies turned prime matter for his future costumes and performances on the streets of Kyiv from the Eighties onwards.

Tetyanych thought of his entire life to be one single efficiency, however he was extra knowledgeable by science-fiction literature, cybernetics and cycles of nature than by any of his contemporaries within the discipline of avant-garde artwork. Within the Seventies, he developed his personal model of ecologically-informed cosmism, stemming from an consciousness of infinite unity with the universe and mutual interconnectedness, which he known as Frypulia. In accordance with him, humanity, even when ultimately became radio waves or rays of sunshine, would carry details about itself and reappear at any level of area and time.

The exhibition pays particular consideration to Tetyanych’s idea of the biotechnosphere—an autonomous unit for shelter, energy-storage and transportation. The artist made quite a few drawings and watercolours imagining their future utility, he additionally put in the precise fashions in public area; for instance, by incorporating them into his State-commissioned monumentalist works. At this time, as we witness the rise of fossil-fascism, sowing disaster and army and data warfare, it’s uncanny to hint the earlier areas of biotechnospheres in Popasna, Peremoga and Kyiv on a map; in lots of situations, they mirror present websites of brutal army destruction.

As none of those sculptures survived the previous political transformation, and whereas Ukraine continues to withstand the ruthless genocidal and ecocidal Russian invasion, what can we study from Tetyanych? A radical shift of political creativeness and visuality is urgently wanted. Tetyanych’s technique of resistance and political experiment presents us a glimpse into what a venture of world-making and therapeutic may imply, however what place does his insubordinate follow occupy within the visible canon of the worldwide avant-garde? Or, certainly, outdoors it? His future-oriented venture reminds us that restore and ethics should be always anticipated, rehearsed and practiced outdoors of artwork to supply sustainable outcomes.

at Croy Nielsen, Vienna
till October 8, 2022

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