Alina Kleytman
The Tongue (2016) / The Place to See Before You Die (2024)
Alina Kleytman, The Place to See Before You Die (2024)
The Place to See Before You Die, video still, courtesy of the artist
The Tongue, video still, courtesy of the artist
The Tongue (2016)
Alina Kleytman’s Tongue is as difficult to watch as the subject it broaches. The artist lies in a drab hospital bed while her tongue swells to monstrous proportions, much to the consternation of the nurse who attends to her helplessly. Ever since the full-fledged invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, this scene has moved a few steps closer to reality. As Kremlin propaganda lays claim to all Russian-speaking areas, Russian speakers from Ukraine find themselves suffocating on their native tongue to the point of abandoning it entirely. Kleytman’s film expresses this feeling but also the stigma now attached to an entire language as the result of today’s geopolitics.
The Place to See Before You Die (2024)
Alina Kleytman’s new film parodies a promotional tourist video. Her gender-neutral protagonist, Dirty White Victim and Fool, sells tours to the artist’s home city of Kharkiv. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kharkiv has often been and still is close to the frontline, under fire and under siege. Filming there in 2024 was as difficult as it was dangerous.
In the film, Dirty White—dressed in rags and painted with garish makeup—proudly advertises an apartment in a semi-destroyed building, or one of the many new cemeteries that had to be built for the victims of the war. The character of Dirty White first emerged in Kleytman’s world in 2022, “against their will,” as the artist says. They are obsessed with the “endless shine of human violence” and bring different sorts of it into the spotlight. The “dirty whiteness” refers to the deep flaws of universal (“white”) humanism and its history of murder and torture.
Alina Kleytman (1991, Kharkiv, Ukraine) is an artist whose practice includes sculpture, video, and curatorial projects. Kleytman describes her approach as “hysterical realism” and deals with themes ranging from psychological and physical boundaries to black magic, abusive relationships, and depersonalization through self-aggrandizement. Her work subjectively embodies today’s political and social realities. Kleytman received the 2021 Women in Arts Award and twice won the PinchukArtCentre Prize. She lives in Turin.
The Tongue (2016)
HD video, stereo sound, 4:46 min.
Courtesy of the artist
The Place to See Before You Die (2024)
4K video, stereo sound, 5:11 min.
Commissioned and produced by steirischer herbst ’24