The Wanderer

The Wanderer was created less than two months after the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Malashchuk and Khimei recreate the fallen Russian occupiers of Ukraine. With this gesture, the artists refer to a classic work of contemporary Ukrainian art – the series of photographs If I Were a German, produced by Fast Reaction Group in 1994. Malashchuk and Khimei, referring to the title of this historical work, question German and, more broadly, Western views of the Russian war in Ukraine. The title of the film, the choice of frames and the way of presenting the work refer to the famous romantic painting The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich and to the colonizing attitude of the figure depicted in it towards the landscape stretching before him. Artists criticize the romantic image of death as something sublime. Placing fallen Russian soldiers in this context simultaneously points to them as the current colonizers of Ukraine and takes revenge on them, breaking the taboo associated with presenting the bodies of the dead. (Text by Katarzyna Różniak-Szabelska)