reviews

“The impression from Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece “The Last Supper”, which was created more than 500 years ago, became the main theme of Igor Kalinauskas’ project 2000 years have passed. Faces faded, but the light remained. Leonardo da Vinci’s fresco refers to the events even more remote in time. However, Igor Kalinauskas’ installation, based on the biblical scene and the ancient fresco, reflects the vague, but not the least important needs of people nowadays.

Not long ago it used to seem that following the way of technical progress you can solve all the problems of mankind and answer all its demands. Today it becomes obvious that it’s not true - the necessity of a spiritual purpose that goes beyond the frame of consumer society philosophy is more evident. This pursuit is difficult, especially since a lot of official religious institutions stopped being relevant to a certain extent. This is where the art offers its unique path, the space for the research of new meanings: the practice of an inner dialogue with one’s spiritual source and an attempt to give one’s own answer to global questions.

This path requires not only the utmost concentration, but also the research of some new ways of expression from the artist, which liberation and freedom from the canons of classical art can help with. It just so happens that Igor Kalinauskas has never been bound by them. By his own confession, Kalinauskas is not a professional artist, as he deliberately refused to study classical art. He has been pursuing, “creating” his own technique in art instead. Undoubtedly, this freedom and his own art style helped him in this project’s creation. It’s not a mere coincidence that one of the main trends of unprofessional visionary art in the world is the religious theme, which can be interpreted in many ways. Nevertheless, the series of canvas are only a part of this project. Igor Kalinauskas admits contentedly that only in Kiev his project was implemented fully, for the first time exactly according to the artist’s intent. There was a pictorial polyptych altar in the end of hall and pillars in the shape of angels that protected the improvised nave. To finish with, an enormous white table in the centre was summoned to “bring closer” the biblical scene, gave a feeling of this day and age in the happening. The music in the background – improvised vocal meditative practice by Duo Zikr (Igor Kalinauskas and Olga Tkachenko) – was playing a significant role. The artist offered a finished synthetic space – basically, a kind of a temple. However, the project brings up another serious aspect. In this improvised “temple” the artwork becomes the icon. The rotations of the “Christ’s blood” and the spiritual portraits of apostles are gathered into a majestic iconostasis – the installation reinforces Leonardo’s artwork as an object of worship. Igor Kalinauskas has been nurturing the idea of this project and he has had a great amount of plans and ways of its realization. One of the most radical plans comprised the building of a special pavilion at one of the city dumps. A part of the project would be the distribution of bread and milk to the bums (inevitable visitors of such a location) at the exit of the pavilion. One could say it’s a sort of communion with art. Can the beauty save the world once again, in Kalinauskas’ viewpoint?”

Zoya Zvinyatskovskaya, art historian