Dmytro Kupriyan: The Art of War / The Art of Machine Gun Maintenance
© Dmytro Kupriyan
About The Exhibition
The title of this project contains two literary references: one to Sun Tzu’s treatiseThe Art of War and the other a less obvious hint at Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a once best-selling novel by Robert M. Pirsig. The latter describes a motorbike ride by a father and a son through the US .It involves a quotidian task of caring for their means of transportation, an old bike that requires day-to-day maintenance.
The war as it is shown in Kupriyan’s project is nothing like a heroic battle. It is rather a set of monotonous routines: trainings, shooting practice, and cleaning the weapons so they don’t get stuck while in combat. We see the soldiers pose for the camera, attend chaplain services, smoke, and sleep (sometimes even in foxholes). These activities are part of their daily life as well as shooting back at the enemy or raids on the enemy’s positions.
Triptychs as a form of images representation serve the same purpose - they add to the boredom of the routine actions and the inevitability of everyday repetitions. They create “stories from the words of single photos”, as the artist puts it. It is also a tool to achieve a certain Zen state of mind, like that of a monk who repeats “the same actions and movements every day, bringing them to sophistication, mastery and perfection”.
To view the exhibition use the menu on the left.