Almost everyone wants to be involved in preparations for the Euro 2012 soccer championship.
Graffiti artists are no different – they have started a two-year project called “Muralissimo” to decorate the walls of 13 Kyiv buildings.
For many Ukrainians, street artists are the last people who Kyiv should turn to to make the city look better, given their association with the ugly scrawl on buildings.
But the Lavra gallery, which is responsible for the event, promises to change people’s attitudes.
The organizers negotiated with city authorities for permission to carry out the project to make sure that their art was legal.
This was far from an easy task, and they don’t want to name the exact addresses of the buildings to be decorated for fear of hindering the course of the festival.
The work has already begun on the inside yard walls of the Lavra gallery.
Artist from Interesni Kazki group finishes up his work on Lavra gallery walls. (Courtesy)
Artists Volodymyr Manzhos and Oleksiy Bordusov from the group Interesni Kazki, or Interesting Tales, decided to be the pioneers of “Muralissimo.”
Even though the festival is dedicated to Euro 2012, soccer is almost beside the point. “To tell you the truth, we are not fond of soccer. Also, the championship will end but the drawings will remain,” Manzhos said.
The Interesni Kazki group has just returned from the street art festival in Seville, Spain.
The first thing they noticed was how much the public appreciates street artists. “All the citizens passing by really liked our work. The level of organization was also superb,” Bordusov said.
Interesni Kazki split the gallery’s wall with another Kyiv artist Vova Vorotnyov, a member of the organizing committee of “Muralissimo.” He will get to work on his part of the painting shortly.
As for the foreign artists, Frenchman Olivier, who instead of a surname uses a nickname 2Shy, has already started working on a wall on 32A Hoholivska Street.
Olivier started drawing 20 years ago. He got his nickname from the television series X-files “for no particular reason.”
Unsurprisingly for someone who paints huge pictures for public display, it’s not a nickname that matches up with his character.
City officials are not involved in sketches of the drawings; all the creative ideas come the artists themselves.
At the end of the festival, Ukraine’s first catalogue of “muralism” will be released as a guide for the open air works of street art.
Muralissimo is organized by the Lavra gallery with help from the Kyiv City Administration, German and French embassies and French cultural center.
The artists receive small stipends from the sponsors and financial backers.
Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Horban can be reached at [email protected].
