Nicholas Voeikoff-Erens

The upshot of this article in the Moscow Times is that Malevich after 100 years of being suppressed, ignored, misunderstood, ridiculed by his own culture is still unpopular in Russia. Kazimir Malevich’s iconic 1915 painting "Black Square", internationally recognized as a masterpiece remains chronically under-visited. Generously, the article allows that Malevich has been given pride of place in the canon of modern Art, especially in the West. But, in the post-Soviet space as i...n the West, Malevich shares the dubious honour of being misunderstood but grudgingly respected at the same time. This is the fate of many luminaries in the genealogy of modern art, somehow explained as a process of separating the wheat from the chaff. Good for the few, if few any good. And Malevich took his fate to the grave. So what is the deal with the black square? In our world, using his idiom, of the golden calf and of false gods, what would be today’s equivalent? Since the 20th century our civilization has been building and elevating our own form of God. This is what Malevich saw then and he could not have dreamt to what heights and luster these gods would rise. We are in the grip of mass adulation and submission to the ubiquitous screen. We cannot live without it. The screen defines and identifies us. And yet a picture representing a screen appalls us.?! Malevich understood that recognizing this is the least we can do. It is an obvious first step. A black screen, a white screen, what about a green one?! Malevich at the beginning of the 20th century was already saying and showing that there is more to the world than its representation. That reality is not represented within a frame. That experience is not captured in two dimensions. 100 years after Malevich, our world is at the doorstep of the virtual, a world that accepts a completely artificial environment as actual experience, and as the only experience worthy of the human. As Buckminster Fuller said, no more second hand gods. To understand Malevich is to understand what Barnett Newman said when he was asked about the meaning of his painting: he said to fully comprehend work is to envision the full collapse of capitalism and totalitarianism as its starting point. Bingo! Malevich never asked for clemency or pity. His challenge was not an easy one. He was, I think emboldened by the revolutionary ferment of his time. As history has shown, revolution was as heady a concept then, as it is now and one that humans have been awful at implementing. To do now in the arts what Malevich dreamt of doing is apriori fated to disaster. We are far gone in our thrall to the screen, to the image, to representation in pictures and words; Malevich, a pioneer in hubris, was a Quichote of his time. And I, 100 years later, subscribe and double my efforts if only for albeit, an ever diminishing glimmer of human imagination and freedom: fail, fail again, fail better Nick Voeikoff, Helen Fotopulos,

Artist Talk in Kaniv Ukraine this past September 2019

Soirée de théâtre ukrainien à Montréal. Le spectacle commémore l’héroïsme des soldats ukrainiens et tire inspiration du livre Ilovaisk d’Yevhen Polozhii ...dédié à la Bataille d’Ilovaisk de 2014. The play Eastern Holidays commemorates the heroism of Ukrainian soldiers struggling for the Independence of Ukraine. Based on Yevhen Polozhii's book "Ilovaisk" dedicated to the Battle of Ilovaisk of August 2014 during the War in Donbass. Nick Voeikoff Richard-Max Tremblay Jean-Pierre Tadros Liliane Tremblay

Soirée d'ouverture Opening Night An exceptional film, extraordinary music and dancing, a love story... "A man is a man and a woman is a woman and are meant for... each other exclusively." This film shows how denial of any other love combination is tearing apart lives and keeping a rigid grip of hate alive. Georgia is but one of many such societies. Georgia on the one hand aspires to be a part of the European Union but can't let go of its religious and post-Soviet straight jacket. Hopefully this highly acclaimed and endearing film will begin a gradual erosion of ossified social morés. And may he keep on dancing... Un film exceptionnel, une musique et des danses extraordinaires, une histoire d'amour ... "Un homme est un homme et une femme est une femme et sont destinés l'un à l'autre exclusivement." Ce film montre à quel point le déni de toute autre combinaison d’amour déchire des vies et maintient en vie une étreinte rigide de haine. See more