Foretypes

On 11 April 2024, the exhibition “Foretypes” by renowned Ukrainian artist Anatoly Kryvolap was opened at the M17 Contemporary Art Center (Kyiv city, Ukraine).

Abstract works that characterise the artist’s oeuvre from the 1990s to the 2000s, as well as icons created over the past year are on display. The exhibition was curated by Valeriy Sakharuk.

“At the age of 22, I knew I would be an abstractionist. I came across some abstraction, and I got a chill, a shiver… I was even scared, because it was 1969, or even earlier, before I entered the institute. Abstraction is a rather complicated thing. You need to know academicism so well in order to be able to use everything that the academic system brings – the theme, the mood, the plasticity – in abstraction.” – Anatoly Kryvolap, Ukrainian Artist

“I believe that it is worth coming to this exhibition every week to soak in the life-giving colours of spring itself. “Foretypes” revitalise. This is exactly the kind of art that gives us joy of life.” – Natalia Shpytkovska, Director of M17 Contemporary Art Center

“After “Zhyvopysnyi Zapovidnyk”, Kryvolap immerses himself in radical experiments. The abstract compositions he was working on at the time were becoming more and more like free practice, oscillating between the orderliness of horizontal stripes and the arbitrariness of colour splashes. All attempts to find any realistic reminiscences are in vain: the viewer is confronted with a new reality that will be associated with the artist’s name from now on.” – Valeriy Sakharuk, Curator of the “Foretypes”  exhibition, Art Historian

Theologians refer to the foretype as the first image of God. Despite the impossibility of describing the ineffable or depicting the invisible, the icon seeks to reveal it by avoiding direct or aerial perspective, chiaroscuro, and volume. For many, and even for the artist himself, turning to iconography was unexpected, unpredictable, and unforeseen.

Before he found his own unique visual imagery, Anatoly Kryvolap went through a challenging path of testing the form. It was only in 1986, 10 years after graduating from the Kyiv State Art Institute, that he realised he had found his style. In the same year, the first abstract images born of the artist’s imagination appeared from under Kryvolap’s brush.

The first half of the 1990s was defined by the ‘Zhyvopysnyi Zapovidnyk’ art group, and afterwards, the artist plunged into radical experiments. In 2007, Anatoly Kryvolap turned to the visual foretype – light, which contains all the basic colours, creating the programme composition “Structures”. 

During 2014-2024, the artist worked on the murals of the Church of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin, located in the village of Lypivka, Kyiv region: the temple is permeated with colour, which subordinates everything around. It is here that the metaphysics of colour merge with the metaphysics of the spirit, which the artist has been pursuing throughout his life.

The exhibition “Foretypes” at M17 CAC is the first to combine the artist’s abstract works with icons. A catalogue has been prepared for the exhibition, which includes all the artworks presented in the exhibition. The grand presentation of the publication was held with the participation of the author and curator on 16 April 2024. Learn more about the event. The video of the catalogue presentation is available at the following link.

The catalogue is currently available for purchase at the M17 CAC and through the online store at the link.

In addition to the catalogue, visitors can enjoy M17 coffee, a limited collection of which is available for purchase in the M17 CAC or in the online store here.

Follow the link to watch the video of the exhibition.

The exhibition is supported by the Art Support Fund and Adamovskiy Foundation.

Address: 102-104 V. Antonovycha St., Kyiv, Ukraine

Admission fees:

Full price ticket = 100 UAH

Concessions = 70 UAH

The exhibition tickets are available at the link

The exhibition “Foretypes” at M17 CAC will run until 07 July 2024.

M17 Work Hours:

Tuesday – Sunday, 11:00–20:00 (Monday – closed)

Anatoly Krivolap was born in 1946 in Yahotyn city. He obtained his education at the Kyiv Art Institute, where he studied in the studio of Victor Puzyrkov. After graduating from the institute, for 15 years he lived a non-public lifestyle, pursuing his artistic ambitions, and refusing to follow the unified Soviet style of socialist realism. The artist’s creative breakthrough occurred in the mid-1980s with the “discovery” of the Fauvists. Since the late 1980s, the name of Anatoly Kryvolap has been emerging more often in the art space, critics wrote about him, noting his scenic painterly temperament. In 1992, together with Tiberiy Szilvashi, Oleksandr Zhyvotkov, Marko Heiko, and Mykola Kryvenko, he founded the art group ‘Zhyvopysnyi Zapovidnyk’, which influenced contemporary Ukrainian fine art for decades. In 2011, Kryvolap was recognised as the “Person of the Year” in Ukraine. In the same year, the artist’s works twice set world records for sales of contemporary Ukrainian art on the international art market. In 2012, the artist received the Taras Shevchenko National Prize.

M17 Contemporary Art Center is a cultural institution that functions as an educational and research platform, an exhibition venue for Ukrainian and foreign contemporary art. The activities of the Center are aimed at creating a dialogue space for professional circles and all the representatives of the culture sector as a whole, at study and research of contemporary and related historical cultural processes. M17 supports art experiments, collaborations and international exchanges of experts, and artists from various art fields, in order to integrate Ukrainian art into the world context.

Art Support Fund is an independent, non-profit, charitable and public-benefit foundation initiated by a group of international patrons, contributing to arts and culture and following the aim to help and support the preservation of the cultural heritage of Ukraine. The Fund was established to ensure the sustainable functioning of the Ukrainian cultural sector, including professionals, assets and infrastructure, as an important prerequisite for the viability and unity of the Ukrainian nation in the face of Russian invasion, by preserving endangered Ukrainian cultural and artistic assets and promoting Ukrainian culture internationally.