Controlled Incidents #1

2013 - Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

Framed: 50 x 70 cm

Nikita Kadan

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Ukraine is under tension due to the politics of President lanoukovitch since 2010. Numerous passive demonstrations against the government have led to numerous police repression of the protestors. The demonstration ‘Euromaïdan’ in 2013 is a perfect example. Realized following the decision of Ianoukovitch not to sign the political association and free trade agreement with the European Union mobilized Ukrainians to demonstrate in the streets of Kyiv. The demonstration was repressed by the security forces of Kyiv and resulted in the death of 108 demonstrators and many injured. Based on photos from 2012-2013, Nikita Kadan realized the watercolor series Controlled Incidents as an archive of these scenes of police violence. The bodies seem to disappear in the pages leaving the void as a manifestation of the absence of traces of this uprising of citizens and the propaganda orchestrated by the state.

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Trained in large-scale painting, Nikita Kadan’s artistic practice encompasses installation, graphics, painting, wall drawing, and urban postering, sometimes in collaboration with architects, human rights activists, and sociologists. His practice critically engages with the social, cultural, and political experiences of Ukrainian citizens and their current and past relationships to their former Soviet era. Kadan is a member of a Ukrainian artist collective called R.E.P. (Revolutionary Experimental Space) since 2004 and founding member of HUDRADA (Artistic Committee), a curatorial and activist collective, since 2008.

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Colors:

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• geopolitics.n.01
• trade.n.01
• resource.n.01
• power.n.01
• war.n.01
• violence.n.01