Nikita Kadan

25 Jan-28 Feb 2017

Overview

A single fluorescent light marked with paint bathes part of the gallery space in green light: Nikita Kadan's Commons acts as its own guardian and marks its territory. Reproducing an austerity-times practice of defacing property to protect it against theft, the gesture in fact increases the value of the object in the context of art. Kadan works with painting, graphics, and installation, often in interdisciplinary collaboration with architects, sociologists and human rights activists. His practice is a critical investigation into the experience of present-day Ukrainians and their relationship to their Soviet past - a mapping that finds often uncomfortable parallels elsewhere.