An exhibition by Dima Mykytenko, Zina Isupova, 44flavours
Curated by Oleksii Zolotar
Bunt is about color. But not only.
In German, bunt means “colorful” — vibrant, life-affirming. In Ukrainian, бунт means rebellion, resistance, an inner stir. The exhibition Bunt balances between these meanings, revealing color as a space of play, a gesture of freedom, a state of presence.
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BUNT
“Color is life; a world without color appears dead,” wrote Johannes Itten. But color is not merely a property of surfaces. It is a gesture, a state, an energy that is present in every act of creation.
The exhibition Bunt arose from the need to understand creativity as a way of being. It was inspired by the book The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin, in which art is not presented as a result or technique, but as openness – to the process, to silence, to the invisible. The artist is not an executor here, but a medium – present in the moment, open to sensing.
The title Bunt is ambiguous. In German, it means “colorful,” while its Ukrainian resonance recalls “bunt” – uprising, resistance, unrest. This linguistic play creates a tension that is also reflected in the exhibition. Here, color is not just an aesthetic phenomenon but an act of resistance, a way of saying, “I am here,” even when language falls silent. It can be a playful approach or a political gesture – in either case, color becomes a means of asserting oneself in the world.
This exhibition is a meeting of three artistic positions: Dima Mykytenko, Zina Isupova, and the Berlin-based artist duo 44flavours. Despite differing forms and approaches, they are united by one thing: they work with color as an essence. In their works, color becomes space, tension, moment. It is not decoration, but protagonist – a delicate threshold between inside and outside.
As the curator, it was important to me to create a space in which these voices resonate equally – like an improvisation, a dialogue, a presence. As in music or in contemplation, meaning does not arise from form, but from sensation.
Bunt is not “colorful” in the literal sense. It is about complexity – in feelings, in states, in ways of being. It is about an art that does not impose itself, but resonates.
I invite you to experience this – open, uncertain, alive.
Oleksii Zolotar, Curator of the Exhibition
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Zina Isupova (b. 1996)
Zina Isupova is an artist. Her early series revolved around political events and images circulating in the media. At the beginning of the 2020s, the focus of the artist’s interests shifted to the material component of the everyday and the depiction of symptomatic fragments of reality.
Dima Mykytenko (b. 1987)
Dima Mykytenko is a visual artist, based in Ukraine (currently based in Poland). Even though he works in a wide variety of media — encompassing drawing, pyrography, installation, and video — he treats painting as central to his practice. Abstract elements and methods of intuitive drawing constitute his own distinct visual language.
The Berlin-based artist duo 44flavours, composed of Sebastian Bagge and Julio Rölle (both b. 1981), has been working collaboratively for more than two decades, creating a rich and multifaceted body of work that blurs the lines between art, design, and urban intervention. Their practice spans from large-scale, site-specific projects in public space — such as painted facades, transformed ships, or reimagined parking lots — to intricate studio works on canvas, paper, wood, or ceramics.