The Apiary

The comprehension of the fact that, as against the past, the destruction can get the global scale has become the main property of our time. The culture has not too much direct relation to social events. The aesthetic sphere is the concentrated memory of mankind, which nourishes itself since inside. In its highest manifestations it helps to understand the harmonious unity of all the components of the Universe, the conformity of the internal «I»and the world around. Therefore it is not surprising that spontaneous processes find their displays in the sphere of the art.

The postmodernism with anatomic diligence having disassembled and having learnt all compounds of the present and the past could not offer a new viable program or even a direction of the movement. Life is not a mosaic of phobias, horrors, death, violence and sensuality. It is bigger, better and more pleasant than these prepared parts.

The project of M.Zhuravel «The Apiary»is one of possible displays of the harmonious and vital art. It is not a craze as it has grown ripe since 1997. It is probably possible to count «The Sphere 1.Collecting nectar»as its beginning. All these years the artist was persistently promoting to the purpose. The symbolical name of the object is a certain metaphor of that way, which he has passed. Addressing to the theme of beekeeping it not only related and children's memoirs (grandfather and father of the artist were bee-keepers). It is probably a uniform example of careful cooperation of a person and the nature.

The project consists of three parts:

1. Manufacturing of functioning beehives-sculptures with the application of the leukas (a chalky coating);

2. Collecting honey by bees in these artifacts;

3. The exhibition.

A choice of the leukas technique is very expressive. Though it is one of the most favorite techniques the artist, its use in beehives metaphorically transfers an idea of a temple. M.Zhuravel wishes to attach, to connect a noble art surface to the harmonious life of a bee family. Honey is the extracted essence of colors. The molten gold personifies in wider understanding the fertile life-giving potentiality of the ground itself. It is not surprising that in a frame of the leukas honey gets a spiritual context which is a symbol of the union of a person with the nature. Honey as a sacral symbol, along with the gold and the light, embodies qualities of the highest and heavenly grade; it asserts a certain level by its presence on the Earth, which is desirable to reach. A person who communicates with bees grows and regenerates spiritually. It is also impossible to consider as a simple coincidence of circumstances the occurrence of the first not injuring beesу beehive on the territory of Ukraine (the inventor Prokopovich). As someone of science officers (not literally, nevertheless, precisely in sense) has told: «An accident it a still not realized law of life». An artist is also that «aerial», which sensitively catches displays of these laws transferring their figurative reflections in the creativity. Semantic layers of perusal of symbolical sculptures of M.Zhuravel are too densely bound and connected one to another that in one text of them it was possible to verbalize them. It is probably not so necessary like the anatomization of an alive organism. The artist has managed to create a complete, sign structure without a literary context, the emotional and sensitive pleasure of which weighs much greater than any text. It would be only desirable to emphasize an urgency of that synthesis which has resulted in the occurrence of «The Apiary»project. Owning all the toolkit of the modern art (video and media means) the artist has intuitively emphasized not achievements of the technical sphere but, having used them, has given the superiority to the natural perfection and activity.

Andriy Gurenko