Five-channel video installation, color, sound
3 min 54 sec
TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection

The Wanderer was created shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. Malashchuk and Khimei recreate the fallen Russian occupiers of Ukraine. With this gesture, the artists refer to a classic work of contemporary Ukrainian art - the series of photographs If I Were a German, produced by Fast Reaction Group in 1994. Malashchuk and Khimei, referring to the title of this historical work, ask questions about the German and, more broadly, Western views of the Russian war in Ukraine. The film's title, the choice of frames, and the way of presenting the work refer to the famous romantic painting The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich and to the colonizing attitude of the figure depicted in it towards the landscape stretching before him. Artists criticize not only the romantic image of death as something sublime. Placing fallen Russian soldiers in this context simultaneously points to them as the current colonizers of Ukraine. It takes revenge on them, breaking the taboo associated with presenting the bodies of the dead.