Originally published fall 2018.
by Ksenia Nouril
Valentyn Odnoviun’s photographs blur the line between the figurative and the abstract. Some look like a petri dish under a microscope; a few display the fissures of a glossy, crystalline structure and look as if they were rocks. But the rough patina of others betray their true nature as spyholes—the thin plates of glass slotted into doorways that allow one to surreptitiously see through to the other side. The stained, scratched, and smudged lenses of the closely cropped peepholes distort our perception, leading us to question who is looking at whom. Are we on the inside or the outside? Are we the viewer or the viewed? Odnoviun produced the series Surveillance between 2016 and 2018 in the cells and yards of prisons formerly operated by the Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB), the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi), and the Polish Ministry of Public Security (MBP) across Central and Eastern Europe for much of the second half of the twentieth century. Despite the atrocities committed by these secret police forces, the photographs do not pass judgment on their actions. The artist, who espouses a research-based practice, instead presents them as open works: “My interest lies not in the field of trauma, but in the field of how we perceive and use this information and build our view of the future through the past,” he says Odnoviun. Undoubtedly, his work is influenced by his personal history, which is marked by several traumatic events. At age thirteen, Odnoviun was diagnosed with cancer while his father Viktor Odnovyun, an NGO volunteer in a newly independent Ukraine, sought asylum in the United States but was detained for more than four years in the American prison system.
Valentyn Odnoviun (b. 1987, Kharkiv, Ukraine) lives and works in Vilnius, Lithuania. Having previously studied at the National Pedagogic University in Kharkiv, the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, Poland, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, he received a Master’s degree in Photography and Media Arts from the Vilnius Academy of Arts in 2016. In addition to numerous exhibitions in Europe, Odnoviun is the recipient of several prizes, grants, and residencies, including the Gaude Polonia from the Polish National Centre for Culture in 2018. Surveillance is partially supported by the Tokina Polska company and the RUCKA Artist Residency. In 2019, works from the series will be on view in a solo exhibition at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.
Prison Cell Door Spyhole. KGB Prison, Tallinn, Estonia, 2016–2018
Prison Cell Door Spyhole. KGB Prison, East Berlin, Germany, 2016–2018
Prison Cell Door Spyhole. KGB Prison, Riga, Latvia, 2016–2018
Prison Cell Door Spyhole. KGB Prison, Riga, Latvia, 2016–2018