Andrii Pidlisniy
‘Red lines that cannot be crossed #2’, 2024, kinetic moving object, rubber, metal, microelectronics, 110 x 30 cm
Andrii works with found objects, video, installation, graphic art and painting. He experiments with a wide range of materials and techniques; he creates kinetic objects, works in traditional analogue methods and employs digital techniques. Andrii’s artistic language and means of expression are equally diverse—ranging from narrative images with characters and storylines to conceptual objects, in which materiality and the context of a redefined object become part of an aesthetic play; from exploring the aesthetic potential of everyday objects abstracted from their context to conceptual, politically charged play of words and meanings.
The kinetic object ‘Red lines that cannot be crossed – 2’ refers to the idiomatic expression ‘red line’, which became a meme during the full-scale war. This idiom, which usually denotes a boundary that must not be crossed and the limits of what is permissible, has been devalued and taken on entirely new meanings in the political slang of world leaders over the past three years. The russian–Ukrainian war has revealed how little the borders declared by politicians, metaphorically called the ‘red lines’, correspond to reality. They remain rhetorical figures that, in practice, often mask hesitation and fear, exposing the gap between declarations and actual capabilities. ‘Red lines’ as boundaries that must not be crossed—whether referring to a list of weapons in a military aid package or the burden of crimes and the degree of cruelty inflicted on human life—turn out to be entirely conditional. In reality, they can be crossed without consequence, while adhering to them, conversely, leads to the escalation of conflicts. The expression ‘red lines’ in politics is an abstraction— it not only designates limits of tolerance but also becomes a metaphor for uncertainty and unpredictability in international relations. Andrii Pidlisniy’s object ironically exposes this loss of original meaning and the absurd abstraction of red lines, which in his work have assumed material form.
