Video art of Lviv, late XX - early XXI century, historical context: creating an art form
Authors: Kohut Volodymyr 
Published: January 2020

Background. For the last 25 years videoart in Ukraine had passed a maturation from the elementary experimental video practices of the end of the 80's to the full-identical art form. Like most of the USSR innovative art trends, videoart in Ukraine paved it's way through the formal endorsement's resistance and had been creating owing to the enthusiasm and persistence of individual artists and single artistic formations. Ukrainian videoart had developed according to all the fine art growth's features of socialistic period; however was established and concepted for the first time in Lviv as a phenomenon in the 1990-s what had generated a brand-new pleiad of cultural actors and had influence on the alternative artistic expression mediums of that time.
Objectives. The incipience and developnent of Lviv videoart appears to be the main goal, applicating specifics of the new media style in individual artistic identification for single artists and Lviv artistic enviroment in general; reconstitution of the expression of new visual ideas made via video camera among social and historical “perestroika” context. Videoart role definition in the artistic expression of the totalitarian unrest period.
Methods. Achieving the goals of the article was implemented via empirical methods: comparison, observation, description of the historical facts, which preceded videoart foundation throughout Ukraine. Theoretical methods were founded for the analysis of videoart, it’s role and position in art studies historiography of Lviv focus. Also deductive chronology playbacking method, what gave an opportunity to represent a whole artistic climate where Lviv videoart was established. Classification method divided artistic formations into groups based on artistic and stylistic criterion.
Results. The research results confirmed the idea of independent Lviv videoart existance with it’s own establishing and development history. Research, based on Andrij Boyarov artworks of the end of 80’s, showed up comprehensive data that videoart had not been positioned as additional medium for single artist’s creations diluting; combination of photo and video was and remains the main activity for a certain range of artists thus proving that emergence of videoart genre had not turned into spontaneous way or copied from West European processes but rather appeared to be totally required by socio-political environment, the artist and the viewer to see the video reflections in galleries. Formed chronology showed up a special linkages between the appearance of brand-new art experiments, alternative practices and youth movements, festivals and artistic formations that had established the very first Ukrainian galleries and had placed curator practices unprecedented neither for artists nor for viewers. These were the “Tsenter Europy”, “Try Krapky”, “Dzyga” galleries, where the exhibitions “Thing Theatre or thing ecology”, “Defloration” and “Congress of Ukrainian Physicians Exhibition” took place at the time of turning point of Ukraine’s 90’s. The “Vyvykh” Festival had become a so-called Vesuvius for massive Lviv non-conformism vector, which explored a number of brand-new names of experimental art and videoart: Alfred Maksymenko, Andrij Boyarov, Hanna Kuts, Viktor Dovhaljuk, Ihor Podolchak, Serhiy Petljuk and others. During the consideration it was revealed that Lviv videoart meant to be different from the one in the other Ukrainian videoart centers due to it “pedagogical” aspect, namely it was the only center, where the experience sharing for the young generation truly existed, that had been caused by reservation problem and communication absence between the videoartists and a range of author generations. The originator of the first videoart in Ukraine - Alfred Maksymenko - now works as a pedagogue at Lviv National Academy of Arts, whose Studies generated a number of videoartists, carring on Lviv Classic School traditions and creating original stylistic indications.
Conclusions. This social-informational research has shown preconditions for a brand-new art genre establishment - the 90’s Lviv videoart and the fact that it was not born in a way of “playing” or “flirtation” with some kind of new imported technical equipment but had it’s own conceptual way instead; got an opportunity to continue previous visual practices and expand the frontiers of visual influences on viewer. The analysis of Lviv videoart formation concludes the research and brings up the subject for further researches: establishing of high-quality art analysis of single artists working in videoart for already more than 25 years. A totally special stylistic manner of creating video images had emerged during that time period, which echoes with traditional Lviv Classic School painting manner and brand-new mediums born and dictated by alternative angles and technical implementation of videoart.