14 March 2011

Kiev

2011 is one of the most unusual years in the 20 years history. Today, 14 March Wilfried is waking up in the morning in his roon on the 10th floor of Hotel Ukraine which is towering over the heart of Kiev – the sun is rising illuminating the “Maidan Square”. Wilfried will have his presentation at the Goethe Institute Kiev organized by the CCA Kiev (Centre for Contemporary Art), starting at 2 p.m. During the morning hours Wilfried will have a tour guided by Olena Lykhovodova, PR @ Goethe Kiev, it is obvious two days visiting Kiev are much too short, and every minute is occupied. That’s crucial with all the professional travels, there is no time felt to explore the local attractions. In any case, on 14h the screening is starting >>

It is a full program, the audience usually is not accustomed to, so after the three hours screenning it will be expected, that many of the attending people will leave and new visitors will join, but nobody is leaving keeping their seats occupied, but when at 19h Wilfried lecture will be starting, for all the new people arriving new seats have to be provided.
Wilfried standing in a group of people talking about the challenge to realize such a cultural enterprise in Ukraine will get touched and turning around he is looking in the face of a young woman – it is Yarina Burkovska (on th right), who prepared 2009 a curated selection of Ukrainian videos. he had met her in Lviv in 2008 on occasion of the Kinolevchuk Festival she had been one of the local curators.
Wilfried is surprised to meet her now, because the communication had not been continued.

The ladies from Center for Contemporary Art (Kateryna Botanova, Liuda Motsiuk – on the left) had asked Wilfried about his curating expecting him to tell them all the secrets of his extensive video curation. They will be disappointed, that Wilfried’s secret is, that there is no secret, and surprised how simple, but most effective and substantial it is without any intellectual frills. While the audience and the Goethe Institute director Vera Bagaliantz obviously are impressed by Wilfried’s power, the ladies from the Center of Contemporary Art who had invited some other Ukrainian curator collegues do not know how to deal with the unexpected simplicity of Wilfried’s concepts – nothing spectacular – nothing to learn from, at least, on first sight.

Vera Bagaliantz – Goethe Institute director – introducing Wilfried to the audience

<strong>Goethe Institute Kiev - more images </strong>

14 March @ Goethe Institute

Goethe Institute Kiev – Presentation Hall

15 March @ CCA – Center for Contemporary Art

Natalya Valda & Wilfried Agricola de Cologne @ CCA workshop on 15 March 2011

This so-called “workshop” had the meaning to encourage students and local artists to do something in “netart”. For doing so 2 hours were available. Holding this “workshop” wasn’t Wilfried’s idea. Such a workshop requires a week, at least, Wilfried complained, but finally, he agreed after the ladies of mediaartLab promissed to teach interested students in programming in advance. But hey hadn’t to prepare a concept for an artwork only, but execute it already, and the 2 hours left for the “workshop” actually had the only purpose finally, to discuss the concept and artwork and for Wilfried to give some advice, if possible. It will be really chaotic, every time when Wilfried starts to go to deeper into the subject matter, new students enter and others leave the room, when some of the students start smoking like in bar, and the noise level is rising like in a central station, Wilfried will stand up and refuse to continue. It is like a kindergarden full of nasty children. There are about 60-80 young people and just 4 or 5 of them are interested in the topic of the workshop. But it will be not even possible for Wilfried to pay attention to them, because obviously nobody is accustomed to discuss and formulate one’s own opinion. At the end Wilfried will give up, by telling the Goethe Institute and CCA responsibles, if he would have been a more prominent person, nobody would have dared to behave like that. But there were also some funny and even touching moments, so that Wilfried will give up his annoyance already soon.

Press 1 – Art Ukraine

Press 2 – Goethe Institut Kiev

Schedule for 14 March