Import Export and Rodeo present RUINED – a group exhibition concept with works by Alice Bucknell, Zuzanna Czebatul, Mia Dudek, Veronika Hapchenko, Nona Inescu, Masha Silchenko and a collaborative piece by SAGG Napoli and Stefania Batoeva.

Bringing together painting, sculpture, photography, installation, video and gaming, the exhibition is centred around the theme of ruins. Architectural, political, economic, environmental, sexual and emotional – ruins have continually manifested in the work of artists showing with Import Export over the last three years. Set in the unique context of Rodeo’s historic gallery space, the exhibition creates a series of powerful, passionate, and poignant moments that offer us a chance to ask ourselves how we are in the face of today’s world events: are we all ruined?

Setting the undercurrent of the exhibition are three works rendered in white to grey scale. Starting from the left wall are the large-scale, figurative painting horses by Kyivborn Veronika Hapchenko, recounting a group scene from a once spectacular, now decomposing mosaic from the workers’ town Pripyat near the infamous Chernobyl powerplant; the roofless bombed out ceramic house by fellow Ukrainian Masha Silchenko; to a shifting urban landscape by Berlin-based Zuzanna Czebatul (Bone, Flesh & Skin series). These works reference themes of war, land degradation, decay, destruction for profit and conquest of public space motivated by greed of warmongers, corporations, and various actors of political life. This reflection on the fate of our land and resources is further abetted by narratives unraveling in The Alluvials: Alice Bucknell’s multi-level speculative video game pondering the future of American cities facing ecological crises like drought and recurring fires.

This strictly socio-political rendering is interrupted by the murky presence of floor works by Mia Dudek — a peach-coloured leaking puddle — and Nona Inescu, consisting of aluminium yoni-shaped Venus traps; as well as a collaborative painting/ wall sculpture by SAGG Napoli and Stefania Batoeva, depicting a half-broken heart pierced with an arrow. The erotic and playful sculptural installations dynamise the space but also bring to the foreground the notion of emotional and sexual ruin. One can be ruined in love – as evidenced by the existence of the trope of the ruined woman in cultural texts from antiquity to today. From the Salem witch hunts to the celebrity culture today, ruins are at the foundation of our perception of bodies, both material and immaterial.

While the subject of an architectural ruin today conjures harrowing images of war, the notion of emotional ruin can be assumed as a vantage point. It allows us to sense cultural shifts and frictions and to consider change. As SAGG Napoli puts it:

‘Why would you fix a broken heart? (…) What has come out of my heart once it had been broken? Was it all pain and disappointment or was it vulnerability? It was strength, it was intuition and - eventually – clarity. Once the heart broke, I could see parts of me I didn’t know I possessed’.

RUINED is on view at Rodeo until 17 February as part of the 2024 edition of Condo Complex