Viktor Tsyganko "From Homelessness to Art World Stardom"

The George Maciunas Foundation Inc. / Fluxus Foundation

poster for Viktor Tsyganko "From Homelessness to Art World Stardom"

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George Maciunas/Fluxus Foundation presents an exhibition of Viktor Tsyganko’s recent paintings and works on paper in its newly renovated exhibition space at 454 West 19th St.

Born in the former Soviet Union, Viktor Tsyganko was educated in classical and modern techniques at the prestigious Stieglitz St. Petersburg State Academy of Art and Industry in Russia. Tsyganko mysteriously appeared in SoHo in 1990 and has led a nomadic lifestyle on the streets and in various institutions in New York City. Over the past few years, Tsyganko was supported by an anonymous patron and is now given residency and antipsychotic medication by Art Pathways, an organization which uses creative recovery treatments to assist artists and writers who face homelessness.

Working in the Eastern European Avant-Garde tradition, Tsyganko’s artistic corpus encompasses an eclectic array of suprematist, cubist, art deco, constructivist, and expressionist modernisms. His recent series of paintings are masterfully painted character studies revealing the way the world looks at Tsyganko through a monochromatic lense. Tsyganko’s remarkable technical command has attracted the attention of critics and dealers of the New York art world who have stated that his work is not “outsider art” nor “the work of a madman”.

There is surprisingly no discernible iconographic evidence in any of the dozens of works that have been produced of the artist’s disruptive mental condition. Literally and figuratively, Tsyganko’s circumstances raise broader issues on the place of the artist in contemporary culture. Most significantly, his lifestyle reflects the problem of homelessness, which was estimated by United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 2005 to be at one hundred million worldwide and two million in the United States alone.

The exhibition will be presented in conjunction with “An Assessment Report”, a new publication on George Maciunas’ prefabricated modular housing system known as Fluxhouse. As the “Father of SoHo”, Maciunas is credited with regentrifying SoHo from a post-industrial dystopia into a vibrant mecca for the arts. His Fluxhouse Cooperatives, which began in 1967 at 80-82 Wooster Street, was a communal system designed to provide affordable housing and promote the welfare of a collective of artists. Influenced by his research on the nomadic lifestyle of Siberian migrations, Maciunas’ progressive architectural theories and designs bear upon broader cultural issues related to social housing systems facing the world today.

[Image: Viktor Tsyganko "Untitled" (2009) Acrylic on Board 10 x 8 in.]

Media

Schedule

from May 04, 2012 to May 26, 2012

Artist(s)

Viktor Tsyganko

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