After a long pause Arsen Savadov’s exhibition “Gulliver’s Dream” is another attempt to figure out where the line between human pride and arrogance is, and whether our civilization deserves the laurel wreath or ridicule.

Arsen Savadov is an artist, from whom the countdown of modern Ukrainian art starts, a figure, the importance of whom in the history of modern Ukrainian art formation is difficult to overestimate, he was at the threshold of Ukrainian transavantgarde and conceptualism, the leader of  the “Ukrainian New Wave”.

“Gulliver’s Dream” as a metaphor for one of the paintings presented at the exhibition. It unites all the images depicted in other paintings which could be in a fairy-tale character’s dream. “Eternal Awakening” is a leitmotif that conceptually unites an artist’s queer reality immersed in lethargic dream. Savadov’s creativity is the dimension in which people are absorbed into situational proposals in anticipation of awakening; but the ephemeral space of the dazzling dream, turns slowly into reality, looking as the streams of paint flowing downwards.

Arsen Savadov’s art competes with such fundamental concepts as time. “We all disappear, and traces of our emotions remain in the form of images, imprinted on picturesque paintings. Everything disappears quickly. Only our emotions and recorded dreams remain”, says the artist.

Gulliver's Dream

The presented exhibition includes the latest works in which the author proceeds to the “real painting”, rejecting the practice of “simulation” and “illusion of painting”. He still remains devoted to his deep and almost intimate method of allusions construction. Such experienced medium helps the viewer to discover himself, despite the possible tragedy of such a trip: “What if there is nothing inside?”

Arsen Savadov trespasses the line between personal and frank, which used to be a forbidden zone for him. His figurative turns from masterfully written body into a powerful and emotional story, having heard which the viewer will still have to set off on this dangerous journey inside oneself.

P.S. All the paintings have its internal keys and all the keys are in Gulliver’s pocket.