Alina Kleytman

Testament – this mystery will go with me to the grave, Necessary Luxury or Luxurious Necessity – Nightmare Bell, Bioinstallation – Prosthesis

2023,
9 sculptural letters, body bags, metal, fabric, plastic, hair, plastic, metal, fur

The works presented by Alina Kleytman are all based on peculiar, sometimes very personal narratives. The first of these recounts: "Two months after the start of the full-scale invasion, my father drove off in an unknown direction. It turned out that he was in Belgorod (the largest Russian city closest to Ukraine) and when I video-called him, he was frighteningly thin and had been shot in the side. He said that he had been stitched up in a basement where "people like him" are treated. What had happened and why did he even go there? He answered: "This mystery will go with me to the grave. Later, my mother said that in order to get back to Ukraine he had to go through Moscow and Finland and was checked for a long time at the border. Fortunately, she said, he had never used any social networks other than TikTok. When I asked him what kind of TikTok this was, he replied: "This mystery will go with me to the grave."" Referring to the second installation, Kleytman writes: "One winter night, at five o’clock in the morning, a nightmarish black bell rose above the girl’s head and, rustling loudly with its corpse bags, began obsessively asking idiotic questions, among them: "Is this profiteering or exploitation?", "Is this mummification or memorialization?", and finally: "Is this a necessary luxury, or a luxurious necessity?"