POST-SOVIET AND POSTCOLONIAL VISUAL LIBERTINAGE AS A FACTOR OF THE UKRAINIAN PICTORIAL BODY FORMATION

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to explore the “Ukrainian” visual body in the discourse of post-Soviet and postcolonial libertinage. The novelty is determined by the problem formulation (Ukrainian libertinage) and by the revealing of cross-cultural characteristics of the Ukrainian and Western visual body as well. The post-Soviet Ukrainian artists’ approaches to present the “Ukrainian” body as the opposite and antinomy to the Soviet body are analyzed. A “free” body principle is realized through post-Soviet and postcolonial libertinage strategies. The study of this process is based on the work of such artists as Illia Kabakov, Borys Mykhailov, Victor Sydorenko, Arsen Savadov, Oleh Kulyk. These artists worked with “Soviet” body creating multilevel channels for its interpretation: “body-victim”, “body-trauma”, “body-riot”, “body-simulacrum”, “body-grotesque”, “sensual body”. It turns out that the strategy of visual postcolonial libertinage was to demystify and “deheroize” the “Soviet” body. The emotive characteristics of body visualization are determined: the conclusion is that a depiction of the body, naked body is the way to express unprejudiced “animal” emotions allowing to “release” the “body-trauma”. The point is the “Ukrainian” body, naked body in postcolonial and post-Soviet libertinage becomes a symbol of “otherness”, freedom, creative unprejudice, experiment.