Another world

Exhibition of photographic works framed in old window frames has started at the IconArt Gallery. These window frames are now containing pictures of sculptures of the saints from old Galician cemeteries. The project named “Windows” is a brainchild of Lviv-based artists Oksana Romaniv-Triska and Andrii Kis.

The dismantled window frames from old Lviv buildings have been made to look like paintings, with photos of memorial sculptures inserted inside and covered with glass. To make them more expressive, photos have got painted inner frames.

As the exhibition’s creators explained, the idea of such a way to present art is historically justified, as the 19th century saw many religious images decorated in this way with the advent of affordable glass. The printed pictures were then covered with glass and framed, with glass itself ornamented and partially colored on inside. Cheap replica icons for household use were produced in this way.

Kis admitted that it was his friend, living in a remote village in the beautifully whitewashed old hut of his parents, who had inspired him to take interest in this technique. There is a new hut on the farmstead which the owner spent half of his life building, and now comes to it from time to time, but lives in the old one. A window of that older hut, the one near Kis’s friend’s desk, looks into the old Jewish cemetery, known locally as “the trenches.” “Hundreds of monuments, both standing upright and half-fallen, long evening shadows, women and goats... This subject is perfectly composed in the window and has stayed unchanged for over 100 years since the hut was built there... Scholars come to this cemetery, which is over 300 years old, from time to time to describe something, measure monuments, read ancient texts on tombstones. The householder, noticing these people through the window, goes out to meet them and conduct hours-long guided tours of this provincial town for them... The old Christian cemetery with dozens of masterpieces of folk sculpture is spread out on the opposite hill from my friend’s hut. That neighborhood has no buildings, and therefore, no windows to observe it through,” Kis told us. Hence, the photographer decided to fill this gap.

“The Windows project reflects nostalgia for the past as well as a look into the future. This is a discerning look of our contemporary who hopes to see a new perspective on his own history through ancient glass,” the organizers maintain.