The «Metachronies» Project as an Example of the Development of an Artist’s Book in Ukraine and a Reflection of the Cultural Environment

The purpose of this article is to analyze the artist’s books by Ukrainian authors presented in the «Metachronies» project. The project, through a group exhibition and documentary videos, explores the experience of artistic work with local histories of the cities where the artists live, and the creation of their own «artistic chronicles» by the authors. The research presents a contemporary time slice and traces the diversity of formal and conceptual foundations of the artist’s book by Ukrainian authors working with this topic. Methods. The research is based on the methods of artistic, stylistic, and comparative analysis of artist’s book projects by Ukrainian authors of artist’s books who participated in the «Metachronies» project. Results. One of the projects that presents the artist’s book as a medium that works with the concepts of «artistic chronicles» and artistic comprehension of the cultural environment is the «Metachronies» exhibition. The project was curated by O. Hryshchenko and the participants: P. Makov, A. Kakhidze, H. Zinkivsky, and Y. Ravsky. The project was first presented at the Ya Gallery art center in Kyiv in 2018 as a group exhibition. The exposition was formed of works created from the early 1990s to 2017–2018, as well as a presentation of a documentary film with interviews with project participants. Having considered the experience of a group exhibition featuring the artist’s books, we can note the potential for a multilayered disclosure of the authors’ work with Ukrainian cities, when works from different years are combined in one exhibition. Such an exposition gives an opportunity to compare different methods of work, visual techniques used by artists to realize their own concept. Drawing with ink, markers, photography, and printing are the technical means used by artists to create books. These seemingly different approaches fulfill similar tasks, namely, showing the Ukrainian local cultural landscape, cities, and stories through artistic metaphors that help shape our identity through contemporary art practices. Conclusions. In recent years, the artist’s book has become an effective tool in contemporary art for the realization of exhibition projects that can present Ukrainian culture, «art chronicles» and local histories of the cities where artists live and work. Especially in such projects, documentation and comments by the authors themselves are important, revealing their motivation and vision of the relevance of their own works. Such projects have the potential for further development, especially in combining the vision of Ukrainian identity by different generations of Ukrainian artists.