AUTOMATIC GALLERY
What does the notion of “land” mean to each of us?
Is it a small piece of ground around one’s home – a place to plant beloved flowers – or is it the entire planet Earth, where all living beings coexist? Does the word land evoke the territory where one lives, where one’s ancestors once lived, and where perhaps one’s children will live? Or does it resonate more with the idea of a country — especially for those whose land has been “taken away” through occupation, war, or the legacy of colonial pasts and presents?
Is LAND something solid, constant, and immutable – or rather fragile, unstable, something one must fight for in order not to lose? There are countless meanings, multiplying endlessly.
In this installation, the artist employs the root AND as a constant element, composed of neon letters, to generate new words. The video projected onto these three letters unfolds a sequence of diverse terms, each constructing a distinct dramatic narrative for every viewer.
Sergiy Petlyuk (b. 1981) is a Ukrainian artist living and working between Paris and Lviv. He studied at the Lviv National Academy of Arts and the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Petlyuk works across various media, with a primary focus on video art combined with sculptural installations. He creates immersive environments that incorporate video, sound, kinetic elements, and programming, placing the viewer as an active part of the work. Through these practices, he explores themes of control, violence, war, nationalism, institutional critique, and the manipulative power of mass media. His art investigates the complex relationship between the body’s sensitivity and the flows of imagination, memory, information, media, social order, and coexistence.
His works have been exhibited internationally at Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris), Saatchi Gallery (London), PinchukArtCentre (Kyiv), Ludwig Museum (Budapest), the Dayton Art Institute (Ohio, USA), among others.