The Double Bind of History

The article is a preface to the monographic book of the Ukrainian contemporary visual artist Nikita Kadan. The work of Nikita Kadan combines an attempt to represent the loss of a coherent historical narrative and an effort to reestablish its role in society. The attentive alignment of his practice to critical socio-political issues provides us with an insight into the political experience of the totalizing “now” characterizing the current situation in Ukraine. Emerging from a tradition of collective activism within the R.E.P. group, Kadan’s individual practice has elaborated a body of works encompassing the notions of politics of memory and the relations between the narratives of modernity and the reality of capitalist society. A particular sensibility for the status of history and the ability to visualize the internal mechanisms that regulate the dynamics between forgetfulness and memory pervade his works.