Andrii Siguntsov
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Our Ship Is a Corsair Schooner

2024CuratorMAXXI · Rome

A screening programme tracing Odesa video art from the 1990s to the present. Early experiments, television footage and performance documentation are shown alongside contemporary moving-image works.

Co-curated by Andrii Siguntsov and Anna Morokhovska in collaboration with the Museum of Odesa Modern Art. Presented at MAXXI, 26 March–21 April 2024.

Mykola Karabinovych — Something Happened This Spring, 2021 · video still 01 / 07
Ute Kilter and Viktor Malyarenko — Die Strasse, 1997 · video still 02 / 07
Ute Kilter — Knee, 2000 · video still 03 / 07
Oleksandr Roitburd — Psychedelic Invasion of the Battleship Potyomkin, 1998 · video still 04 / 07
Image from the screening programme · project archive 05 / 07
Image from the screening programme · project archive 06 / 07
MAXXI · programme poster 07 / 07

From video experiment to testimony

17 video works, 1997–2022. The selection brings together early experiments with editing and appropriated images, performance, and works addressing memory, distance and war.

Full programme — 17 works
  1. Ute Kilter and Viktor MalyarenkoDie Strasse1997 · 5:52
  2. Oleksandr ShevchukCarres me, Darling1997 · 1:21
  3. Myroslav Kulchytskyi and Vadym ChekorskyiScreen Copy1997 · 2:32
  4. Myroslav Kulchytskyi and Vadym ChekorskyiNew York, New York1998 · 3:31
  5. Myroslav Kulchytskyi and Vadym ChekorskyiHighway Nyman1998 · 1:48
  6. Oleksandr RoitburdPsychedelic Invasion of the Battleship Potyomkin into Sergey Eisenstein’s Tautological Hallucination1998 · 9:20
  7. Georgiy DeliyevMaski Show2000 · 24:00
  8. Ute KilterKnee2000 · 15:16
  9. Myroslav KulchytskyiDeep Throat2000 · 10:10
  10. Myroslav KulchytskyiGulf Saw a War2015 · 2:38
  11. Yuri LeidermanHasidic Duchamp2016 · 2:27
  12. Oleksiy ShmurakASMR2019 · 5:55
  13. Nadiya ShoshinaYou’re Here2019 · 17:00
  14. Mykola KarabinovychEven Further2020 · 15:14
  15. Nadiya ShoshinaAubervilliers2021 · 8:38
  16. Mykola KarabinovychSomething Happened This Spring2021 · 6:23
  17. AntiGonnaLost in Freedom2022 · 8:08

MAXXI booklet · titles, dates and running times (PDF)

About the project

Drawing on the collection of the Museum of Odesa Modern Art, the screening traces the movement of Odesa video from open-ended experimentation towards recognition as an artistic medium. Curated by Andrii Siguntsov and Anna Morokhovska, it begins with a deliberately heterogeneous sequence of pirate footage, television programmes, performances and short films.

This early period of experimentation was followed by a relative retreat from video in the early 2000s. From 2014, moving image returned to the centre of many artistic practices, acquiring new urgency and new subjects. The programme follows this uneven development without flattening it into a single style or a continuous story of progress.

Provocation, self-irony and a reflection on art as a space of introspection and freedom connect otherwise very different works. Together, they reveal the expressive range of Odesa’s video scene. The screening was developed in collaboration with the museum; the videogallery was supported by Fondazione In Between Art Film.