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Sleeping Beauty Comes to Life
Monday 3rd September 2012 | Osh
By Sarah Bradley
Sleeping Beauty has come to life in a gallery in Kiev, Ukraine.
Taras Polataiko, a Ukrainian-Canadian artist, has put on the exhibit at the National Art Museum of Ukraine, in which a sleeping woman can be kissed by members of the public and if she opens her eyes she is bound to marry the person for whom she has ‘awakened’.
Five Sleeping Beauties are taking part. Each one will sleep on a podium in the gallery for three days each. Men, women and children are permitted to enter, and anyone (man or woman) over the age of 18 can choose if they would want to kiss the Sleeping Beauty. Any member of the public wishing to kiss a beauty must submit to an oral herpes test, prove that they are not already married, and sign a document agreeing that they will marry the beauty should she open her eyes – as same-sex marriage is illegal in Kiev if the beauty is roused by a woman they would have to arrange to marry somewhere same-sex marriage is possible. Should the beauty wake there would be a projection of her sleeping for the remainder of her time. Polataiko has called his exhibition ‘a beautiful and gentle piece of art’, and said ‘I've just made the fairytale real. The questions are to Charles Perault, and not even him actually. He has not invented it either. He just wrote it down in 1697. The story predated him for hundreds of years in oral form. People created this story. Therefore the questions are to the society, which created it, loves it, and teaches it to its children from generation to generation.’ He seeks to explore the limits of freedom, patience and human relationships.
