Artistic Play and Laughter as a Way of Living in Art

Abstract

The article deals with the duality of a rational, sane worldview and an oppositional-irrational, namely a laughable and theatrical way of reinterpreting reality and life in this "other reality". It is emphasized that the instinct of play, theatricality, and a sense of humor from the earliest times (prehistoric eras) was and still is a manifestation of individual freedom. The instinct of play as a manifestation of cultural self-awareness is represented as a sign of psychological and mental health. Options for rethinking rational life within the framework of the "laughing instinct" are considered in the review of creative approaches to reality by Serhiy Parajanov (his collages), in the stage techniques of Bohdan Stupka. For the first time in Ukrainian art history, the "laughter" of Lucien Dulfan — an artist from Odesa, and since the 1980s — a New Yorker, has been considered. The Odessa "laughter space" was also traced in the works of Serhiy Bozhek and Igor Gusev (their anti-war work of 2022). The painting of Vladyslav Shereshevsky is visualized from the point of view of the "carnival double". Negativist, cynical manifestations of laughter and play in the works of individual representatives of Ukrainian contemporary art were also noted. The article analyzes the positive role of laughter in the works of Ukrainian artists of 2022–2023 in their protest against Putinism. The prognostic value of artistic gestures is illustrated on the example of Serhiy Parajanov's work, which, breaking the law of continuity and normality in art, in creative outbursts (moments of bifurcation), shake the old system of artistic thinking, offering novelty. Laughter in this situation is a guide to prognostication. The article shows how the creative theatricalization of the worldview, the transformation of the tragic into the comic with a joke, in a game and a laugh, is able to save a person not only from lame pragmatism in everyday life, but also from a tragic sense of well-being during periods of severe trials, in particular, when confronting the barbarism of war.