Uladzimir Hramovich
Dark humour that gets under the skin of a city, and artwork that flies in the face of urban developments.
Using digital collage, Hramovich overlays architectural photography with darkly humorous cartoons that link current inner-city development to the destruction of the early 20th Century landmarks. The series "Ghosts" is a commentary on the changing landscape of the city of Minsk, the capital of Belarus, and the artist's hometown. The photography is annotated with graphic sketches, depicting the destruction of Minsk in the Second World War, here a chunky missile, there the fat German officer, and all around the flying debris of a bomb blast. Yet each photograph of the city shows some kind of building work, a site of creation that has been captured in black and white. The images are unstable, the buildings themselves seem unable to express if they are going up, or being torn down - and as a result, it is unclear if we are viewing ruin or repair, creation of destruction. Indeed, this ambiguity is definitive, as so much of what exists now sits on top of the ruins of what once was.
Graphics and symbols are political tools, printed as signs and carved into the street. This vocabulary of the urban environment compounds a message that forms the opinion of the public.
Having competed for his undergraduate studies in Graphics, Uladzimir Hramovich has in his oeuvre a significant amount of textured color lithography depicting the built environment. The buildings are not typically arranged on a street, but rarest in abstract patterns, or endless zig-zagging lines, their windows dark and brooding, their portals obscured or nonexistent, implying a totally non-functional architecture. It is often repeated that the history of architecture is inevitably the history of power, however, it is less often discussed why this is the case. In his work, Hramovich considers the mechanism of this power, and how the image of an object transmits meaning. The ancient material of the city is stone, and while concrete, steel and glass overshadow many skylines, stone is still the medium of much sculpture, and for statements such as triumphal arches. The artist sketches some of the lost treasures made of stone and history in his series "The memory of people lasts forever". We see relics of ancient civilizations that survived for millennia that have been destroyed in the last few years. The loss of these physical objects is the manifestation of an ideology that is opposed to free thought and free expression. These freedoms are under attack from multiple fronts, and Hramovich through his art draws our attention not just to the chosen subject matter of his work, but to the contexts that have in its turn created the necessity for his art to exist. The artist has been a member of the research group "the Problem Collective" since 2016.
Text by Jonathan Ferguson
The material often contains the whole idea or story the artwork tells. I think often the idea goes along with the material.
Biography Uladzimir Hramovich
born in 1989 in Minsk, Belarus
Education
2015 Department of Graphic Arts at the Belarusian State Academy of Arts in Minsk, Belarus
2009 Gymnasium-College of Arts named after i.o. Akhremchik in Minsk, Belarus
Exhibitions (selection)
2021
Cykl ADAPTACJE, Gorzów Wlkp, Poland
Every Day. Art. Solidarity. Resistance, Mysteckiy Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine
Ommach to Zahar Kudin, Minsk, Belarus
Let's drink for those Who failed!, Air-Brno, Brno, Czech Republic (SOLO)
2020
Echoes. Voices from Belarus, Festival ECLAT, Stuttgart, Germany
(Not) Funny Pictures, KH space, Brest, Belarus
Poetic Dissident, IoDeposito B#S Gallery, Treviso, Italy
B.A.R. (Belarus. Art. Revolution), Berlin, Germany
Know Thy Neighbor, Oxygen,Tbilisi, Georgia
2019
Vulica Brazil, Urban Festival, Minsk, Belarus
Holding a Hedgehog with your bare Hands, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Wien, Austria (SOLO)
Pose, Subordination, Festivities and Hedgehogs, Apart Raum, Berlin, Germany
2018
When the rocks are uphill, the cannonballs are off the road, Gallery of Contemporary Art Ў, Minsk, Belarus (SOLO)
WORK HARD! PLAY HARD!, Minsk, Belarus
WITH NO EXCEPTION! In process, Gallery of Contemporary Art Ў, Minsk, Belarus
2017
5. Odessa Biennale of Contemporary Art, Odessa, Ukraine
Resistance of the material, Brzuch Centrum Trawienia Wizji, Wroclaw, Poland (SOLO)
2016
Talks about politics. Critical Art of Belarus of the 10th, DK Do it yourself, Moscow, Russia
Fair of Contemporary Art «Art-Vilnius '16», LITEXPO, Vilnius, Lithuania
2015
5. Land Art Festiwal 2015 Podlaski Przelom Bugu, Poland
Diploma, Gallery of Contemporary Art Ў, Minsk, Belarus
2014
Replika, Gallery of Contemporary Art Ў, Minsk, Belarus
2013
Soram, Gallery Tseh, Minsk, Belarus
Structuring: fragments, Gallery of Contemporary Art Ў, Minsk, Belarus
Residencies
2021
Brno Artists in Residence, Brno, Czech Republic
Galeria Arsenal, Bialystok, Poland (Residency)
2019
Rotor, Vienna, Austria (Residency)
2018
Slavs and Tatars, Berlin, Germany (Residency)
More
Member of the Problem Collective since 2016
Works by Uladzimir Hramovich
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04 (from the series "Ghosts")
2018 / Digital collage on photo paper / 70 x 54 cm / 27.6 x 21.3 in (framed)
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08 (from the series "Ghosts")
2018 / Digital collage on photo paper / 70 x 54 cm / 27.6 x 21.3 in (framed)
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09 ( from the series "Ghosts")
2018 / Digital collage on photo paper / 54 x 70 cm / 21.3 x 27.6 in (framed)
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012 (from the series "Ghosts")
2018 / Digital collage on photo paper / 54 x 70 cm / 21.3 x 27.6 in (framed)
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Untitled, b (from the series "Each saw the future in his own way")
2015 / Lithography on paper / 50.5 x 69.5 cm / 19.9 x 27.4 in (framed)
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Untitled, a (from the series "Each saw the future in his own way")
2015 / Lithography on paper / 50.5 x 69.5 cm / 19.9 x 27.4 in (framed)
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Triumphal Arch in Palmyra, Syria. Destroyed by the group of IGIL (II century - 2015) (from the series "The memory of the people to live forever")
2016 / Lithography on paper / 70.5 x 102.5 cm / 27.8 x 40.4 in (framed)
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Bamian Buddha statues, Afghanistan. Destroyed by the Taliban grouping (11th century - 2001) (from the series "The memory of the people to live forever")
2016 / Lithography on paper / 70.5 x 102.5 cm / 27.8 x 40.4 in (framed)
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Green Bridge in Vilnius, Lithuania. Sculptures were dismantled (1952 - 2015) (from the series "The memory of the people to live forever")
2016 / Lithography on paper / 70.5 x 102.5 cm / 27.8 x 40.4 in (framed)
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01 (from the series "Ghosts")
2018 / Digital collage on photo paper / 54 x 70 cm / 21.3 x 27.6 in (framed)
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Untitled, c (from the series "Each saw the future in his own way")
2015 / Lithography on paper / 50.5 x 69.5 cm / 19.9 x 27.4 in (framed)
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sold
Shedu. The gate of the palace Sargon II. Khorsabad, Iraq. Destroyed by the grouping of IGIL (9 BC-2015), b (from the series "The memory of the people to live forever")
2016 / Lightbox / 30 x 40 x 10 cm / 11.8 x 15.7 x 3.9 in
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Shedu. The gate of the palace Sargon II. Khorsabad, Iraq. Destroyed by the grouping of IGIL (9 BC-2015), a (from the series "The memory of the people to live forever")
2016 / Lithography on paper / 70.5 x 102.5 cm / 27.8 x 40.4 in (framed)