ART COMPETITION «PINK BULLDOZER» – YOUTH ART COMPETITIONS IN THE CULTURAL SPACE OF ODESSA (2012–2018, 2023 YEARS)

Abstract

The article shows the history of the creation and development of such a phenomenon in the cultural space of Odessa as the youth art competition «Pink Bulldozer», which is programmatically aimed at presenting modern positive art. The key to the concept of the contest is the capacious concept of «positive», but for its better understanding it should not be limited to the meanings of «favorable», «approving», «commendable» or «optimistic», the figurative interpretation should be expanded to a philosophical reading – «affirmative», «real», «based on experience and facts». Positive art is created by a person who appreciates the experience of the past, believes in the future, and at the same time really lives, acts, thinks and creates in the present. The art competitions of 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018 were considered, which gradually changed their status from a student regional competition among artistic educational institutions of Odesa, interregional, all- Ukrainian to an international youth annual competition and an international biennial of young and mature artists. Each year, the competition received a different thematic direction. The article presents an analysis of annual themes, analyzed and summarized the specifics of content and formal decisions of the participants’ works. The main motifs and images to which the artists applied in accordance with each thematic task were identified, and an interpretation of their meaningful basis in the context of time was presented. It shows the appeal of artists both to temporary “painful” relevant images and plots, and to timeless archetypal foundations, which received an individual formal reading. The authors of the article are personally directly related to the organization of the competition: O.V. Malik as the ideological founder and curator of the project, A.I. Nosenko is an art critic, author of articles for catalogs and permanent member of the jury. The materials of the article are important as a documentary material highlighting the trends of modern youth art of the second decade of the 2000s, based on the materials of the Odesa art competition «Pink Bulldozer».