Anti Monocenter. The Fourth 'Book of Schemes'. Album No. 1, the First Folder 1978

Editor: We're looking at Valerii Lamakh’s “Anti Monocenter. The Fourth 'Book of Schemes'. Album No. 1, the First Folder," made in 1978. It's an ink print on paper. It strikes me as both incredibly simple and somehow… charged? Like a minimalist symbol with a hidden depth. What do you see in this piece? Curator: Well, that “charged” feeling is something I can really latch onto. I get the sense this image pulses…Lamakh was Ukrainian and working during the Soviet era. There’s a kind of quiet rebellion here. Look at that precise geometry. Circles and crosses. A formal language flirting with something… subversive. I wonder if it feels a bit like a diagram of some unknown ritual. Don't you think? Editor: A ritual… definitely. The crosses around the circle feel almost protective, but also…restrictive? Is that just me reading too much into it? Curator: Not at all! Art, especially abstract art, speaks in suggestion. Lamakh is inviting us to project our own narratives onto it. It could be protection. It could be containment. It could be a meditation on the push and pull between those ideas, right? Also the title feels significant given the political context of his Ukranian heritage; it could even symbolize breaking from political power and seeking independent representation, what do you think? Editor: That makes me consider the "anti-monocenter" part of the title. Is this piece then fighting against a system of absolute authority? Curator: Precisely! It feels so timely doesn't it. That, is the delicious magic trick within abstraction. It both obscures and reveals. What a neat experience. Editor: I definitely see it differently now. It is a silent protest maybe. Thank you! Curator: The pleasure was mine, every art experience always holds new reflections to embrace.