In her multidisciplinary practice, Alina Kleytman (b. 1991, Kharkiv) explores power, violence, trauma, and self-mythologization. Balancing dark irony with mourning, she transforms trauma into a sharp visual language, constructing grotesque yet alluring objects that resemble mutated relics of desire, protection, or submission—organic yet artificial, fragile yet menacing.
Her practice investigates the psychological and physical boundaries of the body, drawing on references to black magic, abusive relationships, and depersonalization through self-aggrandizement. Often incorporating materials sourced from conflict zones, she creates memory capsules of societal collapse and resilience.
THE GREATEST SHOW brings together new and recent works, expanding on Kleytman’s long-standing interest in mythmaking and the theatricality of power. Through a constellation of hybrid objects, at once seductive and grotesque, ceremonial and absurd, Kleytman examines the ways violence is beautified, fetishized, and consumed. This deeply personal yet highly political body of work reflects on the mechanisms of control, submission, and survival in a world marked by conflict, wars, and crisis.
For the exhibition THE GREATEST SHOW, the artist has prepared an audio guide featuring stories about each sculpture. Below, the works are listed in the order they appear in the guide. By clicking on each work, you can access its transcription. Transcription of the introduction from the audio guide written by Alina Kleytman:Ladies and gentlemen!
Lights! Music! Faces up!
Unfasten your thinking.
Hold your breath.
Listen…
Do you hear the curtain tremble?
She’s about to appear—
Not a diva of time, but of fate.
Not a participant in history,
but the one who adjusts its course.
Yes. Her.
You know who I mean.
She whose skin is the color of evening in Mar-a-Lago.
Whose gesture is a blow to protocol.
Whose mouth never closes—because there’s always something to say.
Whose hair isn’t a hairstyle, but a strategy.
Whose silences are speeches, too.
The one who could have ended any war.
But chose instead to give the world a chance
to understand her—without explanation.
Ladies and gentlemen…
And you, who dared not to applaud at once—
Bow low.
You are being granted a chance to truly admire.
Without shame. Without irony. Without retreat.
Yes. She is magnificent.
Because the world is too weak to be this way.
THE GREATEST SHOW.
The essence.
The spectacle.
The answer.