The art group Byelorusskiy Klimat (which, transparently, is in Russian for "Belarusian Climate") was founded in 1987, and started playing concerts in 1988. It includes photography, paintings, music, performances, and video.
Three to twelve people strong (depending on projects’ requirements), Byelorusskiy Klimat have held many exhibitions and played concerts in Minsk, Narva, Copenhagen, Berlin, Hamm, and Eindhoven. Artworks by the participants are in private collections in the above-mentioned towns, as well as Athens and Chicago, the Stockholm Modern Museum, and the Danish Royal Library.
At present, there are four musical projects in Byelorusskiy Klimat:
Philippe Tchmyr won the All-Belarusian Alternative Music Contest, organised by the Belarusian Soros Foundation spring 1996.
One of the last exhibitions by Byelorusskiy Klimat was held in Eindhoven, Netherlands, September 1995 in the 2B workshops. The room 25x18x5m imposed a problem for exhibiting photography, which was dealt with by creating an inner pavilion 8x8x3m with an artificial 15cm floor out of about 2.5 tonnes of sand and stone. The 42 photos were hung on the black inward surfaces of vertically suspended shields (two on each edge of the square). The works were lit by point light sources from the ceiling. The rest of the room remained unlit but for the four slide shows, projected on the four walls. The 360 slides were specially painted on film (to contrast the photographic nature of the central exhibition). The exhibition was accompanied by music, specially recorded for it on a disintegrated piano. The opening night featured the performance ‘O Empire’, slide films ‘Aeronauts’, ‘Play Field’, ‘Hunter and Bird’, and ‘The Rat-Catcher’, and concerts by Drum Ecstasy and Philippe Tchmyr.
The last exhibition, Winter La Mas Bonita, was held on Feb 16, 1997 at the Pyramid café in Minsk. Mixed technique (slide and graphics) works were projected onto 90x200cm to 200x200cm flags, waved by artificial wind and live music (Phil + Drum Ecstasy & Valik Grishko).
The exhibition held in De Fabriek gallery (Eindhoven, Netherlands) in February 1999 presented a new collection of 100 photographs (featuring colour photos for the first time). The pavilion floor was strewn with fabric painted with fluorescent paints and waved by fans which simutated water surface. In the blacklit centre of the pavilion there lied plastic bags filled with flourescently died water Photos were hung on two white walls and point-lit. The authors are thankful to the NGYO New Faces, the art workshop 2B, and the Philips head office for their support in organising the exhibition.
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