INTERVIEW: Roman Zuzuk, artist, art promoter (12/17/95)

INTERVIEW: Roman Zuzuk, artist, art promoter

While doing his best to be on vacation in Prague, The Weekly's Torontonian, Andrij Wynnyckyj, stumbled on an impromptu assignment - to put the spotlight on a local artistic Ukrainian success story, Roman Zuzuk.

The interview was conducted during the week of November 4-11 (in as leisurely a fashion as possible).

Q: What kind of atmosphere is there for art in Prague now? Some say it's a clearinghouse for everything out of the East; some artists say things have been brought out of them by the spirit of the place.

A: I think everybody brings something with them, then develops under the exposure to the city and to Western traditions. These traditions are somewhat more accessible here, but not much more than back home.

For my part, I don't think I've changed that much.

Many artists simply paint Prague - it's a fascinating subject, it looks magical, and the tourists love it.

Q: But you don't do that. Prague doesn't show up in your works.

A: No, but it still might, who knows? Then again, I didn't start painting and working creatively until the last year of my studies. Restoration took up most of my time at the Kyiv Art Institute.

The "realistic" approach to painting enforced when I was in school [in the 1980s] also sapped any other creative energies I might have had. But that's not all bad - I concentrated on learning as much as I could about technique and so on.

Q: What did you restore?

A: Icons, mainly.

Q: Individual works, or on iconostases? Did you specialize in a particular century or period?

A: No, just icons painted on wood, one at a time. I didn't become an expert on it, because we were simply taught the techniques and the practical application of restoration. I'm not a specialist by any stretch of the imagination - I dropped it, after all. (laughs)

Q: Has your work with icons influenced your art?

A: Very much so. Perhaps the strongest influence was the mere fact of working on a masterpiece. You can't help but be affected.

And it doesn't matter whether these were works by folk artists or professional Church painters - these icons were exceptional. I got to look at these things up close for about five years.

The icons I worked on were all Ukrainian - from Volhynia and Transcarpathia. When you work on this material, you become steeped in the spirit of your own people.

Q: Your catalogue mentions that your art is filled with biblical and religious themes.

A: I'm not sure, but I might have started off with that because I didn't know what I wanted to paint. Almost by default I turned to eternal things.

An artist's hardest task is probably to find out what needs to be expressed, what voice to use. An artist can know how to do a lot, but have no idea what to do. Sometimes it's hard to find out what you're interested in. (laughs)

Personally, I knew I wanted to be an artist, that I wanted to paint, but what?

So when I first came to Prague, I would paint the Trinity, and took quite a bit of inspiration from religion. But the more I go on, the less I find myself doing this.

Q: You have some people constricted in cravats, who are they, the bourgeois, party hacks?

A: They're yuppies (laughs). People who want to become either. There's no difference between them, obviously.

Q: There's a naive quality to your work, is that something you strive for?

A: That probably comes from my work with icons. It taught me that the simplest things are the most beautiful. Things that seem to have been painted by a child, but at second glance, obviously not by a child.

Also, with an icon, the artist tries to put in more spirit than "ability" or knowledge. After all, when you look at an icon, it's not the technical mastery that awes you - it is a door into the spiritual.

One shouldn't show everything one knows and is able to do in a single work. You have to do what you want, not what you know how to do.

Q: Your catalogue mentions Picasso as a model. Picasso once said he tried to paint like a child, to get back to that mode of expression. Is that what you do?

A: The essential thing is to express your emotions by way of simple things. The primitive, the caricature - these are very basic and very accessible.

Q: The text in your catalogue mentions that you deal with "social and political issues." Which ones?

A: Ach, that's an old catalogue, last year's. (laughs) Particularly in Germany they love to make me into a social critic. The social or political commentary that appears in my work stems from the questions that keep recurring. That's just a label.

When you do find your own voice, your personal vision, your own style, you'll still be coming up against the oldest questions.

Q: What kind of questions? Such as, where is love lost? Where does truth begin and end?

A: Right. Life is cruel, Why? In dealing with cruelty, for example, I present it as something somebody enjoys, as a strange joy. I try to produce ambiguity. So that someone looking at the work feels both joy and sadness. It's just like life - some laugh, some cry.

Q: Do you try to, for instance, caricature cruelty so that somebody might realize what they're doing and stop?

A: Could be. But I doubt that anybody will look at anything and decide to stop doing what they're doing, particularly not art. I don't think art can change anything, unfortunately

Art can show, it can explain. Maybe people will start thinking - and that's already asking a lot. And here you are, asking them to change ... (laughs)

Q: An encouraging thing about your gallery is its openness. Even your sign says "Roman Zuzuk and friends." Do you hope to bring your friends from Ukraine and expose them to the scene in Prague?

A: That's already happening. A few of my friends have come here, they've seen what the art world is like. And more will probably come, and I'll show them around. But in my opinion, art in Kyiv is much more progressive than in Prague.

Q: Really?

A: Sure. Of course, you can get more buyers and sponsors here, no question about it. But in terms of what is current, what is in the air, Kyiv is ahead of Prague. At least, that was my impression when I last visited Kyiv, in the winter [early 1995].

Q: Did you encourage people to come to Prague?

A: Well, I could, but most artists doing interesting things there need massive spaces, primarily. Their main concern is not commercial, nor do they really crave more exposure.

Of course, they could always use a bit of exposure. I could bring them here, if they wanted to come, but showing their stuff becomes kind of complicated - these things are really huge.

Q: Who is the best of the crop in Kyiv now?

A: Two artists, Senchenko and Savadov. I don't remember their proper names, but their stuff is great, and big.

Recently, they took over a ship from the Black Sea Fleet, painted it up like a stage and dressed all the sailors and soldiers as ballerinas. It was great. Just like Swan Lake. (laughs)

Q: So it's performance art and installations?

A: Right. They do things with life, not with canvasses. It's pure. You can't hang it up on a wall, you can't buy it, but it's beautiful. You just have to be there to see it. Who knows if it would work here, or if [the artists] would even know what to do in this environment.

Q: What kind of an influence do you think the West is having on art in Ukraine? Is it something one has to contend with, to embrace, to defeat?

A: It has to be survived. (laughs) The world is one place, it always has been. Styles, fashions, kinds of thinking, they pass over us, they leave, they return. Some things can be suppressed for a time, but they don't disappear.

People should live through this, experience what the West brings. When the perebudova [perestroika] period came, people in Ukraine and Russia started to copy what was going on in the West and became famous, simply for copying. It was cute for Westerners to watch Ukrainians doing the same things, I guess.

But there are people who had been waiting for a chance to express themselves, and waited out the first wave of interest and have now begun doing the things they want to. That's a bit more risky, and brave, to my mind.

Q: Do you think that these artists have less of a "tainted" perspective and vision, because they don't use the tired lexicon of the West?

A: Depends on the artist. Some have gone entirely Western, some kept their identity, their Ukrainianness.

Q: What is "Ukrainianness" in art?

A: (Laughs) Aah, yes. Well, it's hard to put it into words, but you can feel it in the works - let's say, the openness of the colors, the song-like quality. You have to see it, but there is a quality to Ukrainian art that differentiates it from any other.

It's regional too, of course. Take Transcarpathians, they paint with very clear colors. It's a school of painting.

Q: Have you been back to your own village?

A: Selets? Sure, I was there in the spring. I go every year.

Q: Do you draw inspiration from that?

A: A German asked me once - "What do you go to look at, the cows, the pigs?" (laughs) And I told him, "Well, luckily, people still live there, too." You can't pin it down to that. If I could become a better artist by visiting my village, then I'd be back there every weekend.

But obviously, it's better to keep contact with the place where you were born - you can see how people change, your relatives. You ask yourself many questions after each visit. No matter who you are, how far you've gone, the place where you were born is a center of your being.

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