XXX

Andriy Bludov is a Ukrainian contemporary painter who was born in 1962 and lives and works in Kyiv. He graduated from the Kyiv Art and Industry College (1982); graphic faculty of the Kyiv State Art Institute (1990). Since 1988 he has been a participant in art exhibitions. Since 1990  is a member of the Union of Artists of Ukraine.

He is a participant in more than thirty group international art projects and exhibitions such as Holland Art Fair (Netherlands), LINEART (Belgium), Contemporary Ukrainian Art (USA), Guangzhou art fair (China).

Andriy Bludov’s new project, provocatively called “XXX” – this is how pornography in cinema is labeled. The artist also marks his images – dedicated to sexuality as a special historical form of experience. Experience gives a person the opportunity to realize himself as a “subject of desire.” And this topic is by no means secondary, as Michel Foucault wrote, “in desire, the individual discovers the truth of his being, regardless of whether he considers it natural or created.”

Tons of literature have been written about the subject’s ability to be aware of his desire – in psychiatry, psychoanalysis, philosophy. But in art, it is still customary to approach this topic with caution and special security measures. Since this is the territory of aesthetics, where everything frankly physiological is subject to euphemization – smoothing, concealment.

Andriy Bludov notes that his own view of the context of European erotic art is distanced and attracted at the same time. In a sense, it looks like the beginning of some kind of culturological research – reflection on the theme of eroticism in European art from its very origins.

Bludov’s painting is usually multi-layered in every sense – and here the artist also immerses models in spicy underwear, who posed for anonymous photographers, in the element of luxury and prosperity. They arise against the background of fruits, traditionally and in all cultures symbolize sexual satisfaction, also some kind of full-blooded forbidden fruits – real objects of desire.