Ihor Podolchak is a Ukrainian filmmaker and visual artist. He is a co-founder of the creative association Masoch Fund. Ihor Podolchak was named as one of the 10 most prominent Ukrainian filmmakers by Forbes Ukraine in 2014, :uk:Список членів Української кіноакадемії|member of Ukrainian Film Academy.
Biography
Podolchak was born in Lviv, Ukrainian SSR, USSR. He graduated from Lviv Academy of Fine Arts with distinction in 1984. From 1984 to 1985 he served in the Soviet Border Troops on the Soviet-Polish border. From 1985 to 1986 he worked in the Art Fund of the Union of Artists of Ukraine. Since 1986 - a free artist and curator of contemporary art. Participant and laureate of numerous international exhibitions, organized and held a number of international exhibitions in Ukraine, Russia, USA, Norway. After establishing the Masoch Fund, together with Igor Durich, he actively conducted various artistic projects in Ukraine, in Russia, in Germany. Since 1997, he has been engaged in the integrated design of the visual-image component of political election campaigns in Ukraine and Russia. Since 2006, he writes scripts, shoots and produces movies:
Podolchak works in different genres of fine art - painting, prints, photography, video art and art actions. At the beginning of his career, the graphics prevailed, and from the mid-1990s makes art actions and performances, from the late 1990s video art. In the center of Podolchak's creativity, is a human body in its various manifestations, relationships with other bodies, as well as in different stages of decomposition. In the artistic development of the theme of decomposition and decay there are only two types of matter, two definite formations of "flesh" - human and architectural. They are the receptacles of all sorts of energies, the connections of various semiotic codes - the most clearly demonstrated manifestations of regressive forces. The propensity to the metamorphoses of decomposition reveals and, in a special way, mythologizes the "corporeality" of these two organisms, and the inconstancy of the point of view on their relations in this state, constantly improves the iconography of Podolchak's aesthetics in general. The artist's book Jacob Bohme was awarded as World's Best Book by Stiftung Buchkunst Frankfurt am Main at Frankfurt Book Fair. One of his 24 personal exhibitions was the first art exhibition ever to be held in space, at space station Mir on January 25, 1993. Artworks of Podolchak can be found in 26 museums and public collections worldwide.
Cinema
Both Podolchak's films have common characteristic features: departure from narrative, anthropology of enclosed worlds, elaborated composition of frame, unusual shooting angles. The spaces of Las Meninas and Delirium are similarly dense, difficult for movement, tiresome both for the characters moving within them and the viewers watching them. This reflects the time of "the end of history" with its somnambulism, impotence, morbidity and hopelessness.
''Las Meninas''
Las Meninas is Podolchak's debut full-length film. He wrote, directed and produced it. The film had a world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in the competition program on January 25, 2008. Overall, it has participated in 27 international film festivals, including 10 competition programs.
