Shell 2009-2012 | kadyrova EN

SHELLS

2008 – 2012

Ironically juxtaposing content and form, Kadyrova continues to use everyday building materials – siding and shingles – for her series Shells. What is usually used to construct a building’s walls and roof becomes an artistic material for creating a metaphorical home, a shell, inhabited by a living organism.

In the context of continuous repartition and privatization of public space in Ukraine, Kadyrova’s shell-homes acquire undertones of social commentary.

The residents of Ukrainian cities are losing public space to private capital and consequently being pushed into the sphere of private interiors. The absence of public spaces for recreation and making oneself visible as a subject of social relations is counterbalanced by a hypertrophied interest in embellishing the private, which results in perpetual euro-renovation. Ukrainians are crawling into their shell-homes, away from the outside world, and enclosing themselves in a middle-class lifestyle and its consumer comforts that numb civic consciousness.

SHELL 2008 Plastic siding, polyurethane foam, Spackle, acrylic 130 × 165 × 116

SHELL 2012 Polyurethane foam, metal armature, ceramic roof tile 250 × 250 × 150 Winner of Grand Prix, Kyiv Sculpture Project Collection of Igor Voronov Grishko Central Botanical Garden, Kyiv

SHELL 2011 Polyurethane foam, slate, Spackle, acrylic 137 × 125 × 60 Collection of the Foundation of Vladimir Smirnov and Konstantine Sorokin, Moscow Photo: Andrew Yagubsky, Alexei Lerer

SHELL 2012 Polyurethane foam, metal armature, ceramic roof tile 250 × 250 × 150 Winner of Grand Prix, Kyiv Sculpture Project Collection of Igor Voronov Grishko Central Botanical Garden, Kyiv

SHELL 2008 Plastic siding, polyurethane foam, Spackle, acrylic 130 × 165 × 116 Photo: Andrew Yagubsky, Alexei Lerer