Sculpture of Plastic Associations in the Work of Mykhailo Dzyndra of the Late 1960s – 1970s

The conceptual foundations of M. Dzyndra's creative pursuits during the period of “sculpture of plastic associations” (1967/68–1974) are revealed. Based on the criterion of the relationship between the “basic semantic text”, “subject motifs” and the formal solution, the sculptural works created within this framework are typologized and their semantic-imagery and formal-plastic characteristics are identified. It is argued that the formal-plastic features of “sculpture of plastic associations” in M. Dzyndra's work include the reduction of the empirical to the essential; generalization and conciseness; expressiveness of silhouettes and rhythm; monumental stasis or expression; inclusion of spatial caesuras in the imagery-plastic structure of the work; contrast of stasis and dynamics, scales, volumes, and forms; the image-forming significance of the interaction between form and surrounding space; and the appeal to modernist artistic experience and the form-making of archaic cultures. The features of M. Dzyndra's reception of the creative findings of O. Archypenko, C. Brancusi, J. Lipchitz, H. Moore, J. Miró, and P. Picasso are analyzed. Interdisciplinary artistic influences in certain works of the artist and their orientation towards exhibition in a natural environment are highlighted. The delineation within the “plastic-associative” period in M. Dzyndra's work of geometrizing forms inspired by Cubism and “bionic” types of form-making, which will later develop into “abstract form plasticity” and “architectural form plasticity” in the master's oeuvre, is emphasized.