Yuriy Biley and Stanislav Turina are founding members of the Open Group; an artist collective that was established in 2012 in Lviv by six young artists. Next to permanent members Yuriy Biley, Stanislav Turina, Pavlo Kovach Jr. and Anton Varga, the Open Group consists of artists and non-artists who collaborate in the creation of a specific project. The number of temporary members varies from one person to several hundreds. The practice of the Open Group is based on researching the interaction and communication between people, artists, situations and spaces. Their main ongoing project is Open Gallery. Open Galleries are outlined spaces created upon invitation or own initiative en plein air as well as in an (non-) art venues. If an Open Gallery inhabits a specific space it becomes a temporary territory for exhibiting works of art or exhibiting spaces as objects in their own right. An Open Gallery can be defined by its clearly visible symbolical borders, subtle interventions or simply by the presence of the group or an audience. After being completed each Open Gallery remains as it is and functions in its initial environment without further control. With their Open Galleries the collective question the form, place and status of galleries, exhibition spaces, modes of display as well as the position and role of audiences. By creating work in relation to specific environments and contexts the collective aims to re-evaluate conventional ideas about public space and through that generate alternative communal experiences. Moreover the Open Galleries reflect upon the situation of institutional ‘wasteland’ in the contemporary art field, particularly in Ukraine.
During their residency Yuriy Biley and Stanislav Turina created the Bijlmer Open Gallery One and the same place in collaboration with radio maker Jesper Buursink.This project took place in the frame of the international project Open Gallery Ukraine-the Netherlands: 1000 km view initiated by Amsterdam-based curator Irina Leifer and Kyiv-based curators Maria Lanko and Lizaveta German in collaboration with Biruchiy Contemporary Art Project.
