Alina Kleytman

BORDER, 2014, 1’28’’
from the Super A series

In the video Border, Super A, the artist’s alter ego, in leopard-print leggings over black lace stockings and listening to the song Enter The Ninja by South African Rap-Rave-Band Die Antwoord. She enjoys herself in a train toilet, smokes a cigarette and treats her skin blemishes until she finally pees standing on dollar bills that were hidden in her panties to smuggle them across the border. In a country ravaged by crises and corruption the fear of border controls has existed not just since the war in eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, but also shapes the experience of migrant workers to the EU who often operate in a legal grey area.

ALINA KLEYTMAN, *1991 in Kharkiv, was a nominee for the PinchukArtCentre Prize in 2011 a winner at the Non Stop Media Biennial. In 2010, Kleytman opened her own gallery-laboratory in a building that used to house stables, where she curated numerous projects. She received her B.A. in 2012 from the State Academy of Design and Art in Kharkiv. From 2012 to 2015, she studied at the Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia. In 2015, Kleytman won the special prize for young artists awarded by the PinchukArtCentre and the public choice award in 2018 of the same institution. In 2021, she founded the curatorial group Wet Hole in 2021 in collaboration with Nikita Kadan and Bogdana Kosmina. They also founded the Dzherelo Art Pavilion – a 24/7 public art space – and developed the Bodys in the City program 2021–22.

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