А4, Кулькова ручка (англ. A4, Ballpoint; рос. А4, Шариковая ручка) - is an annual art project that has been held since 2006 among Ukrainian and foreign artists. The competition is organized by the Association of Contemporary Art Workers of Ukraine, and the exhibition platform is Karas Gallery. The author and curator of the project is Yevhen Karas.
The competition was founded in 2006 by Yevhen Karas with the active participation of Kyiv artists such as Mykola Kryvenko, Vinni Reunov, Tiberiy Silvashi, Vlada Ralko, Volodymyr Budnikov, Anatoliy Kryvolap, Oleksandr Roitburd, Oleksandr Babak, Stas Volyazlovskyi, Oleksiy Apollonov, Ilya Isupov and others. The initial idea was to combine ordinary everyday office stationery with elite art. The project was immediately declared open - anyone could submit works without age, nationality, or other social restrictions. "The idea of this project was born out of a conversation with Mykola Kryvenko, who suggested a group exhibition of artists who draw on paper, and was perfected in its final format by Vinny Reunov. "We invited leading and young Ukrainian artists to the project, some of whom formed an ideological council, in particular for the competition part of the project, although even the classics were subject to aesthetic ostracism."[1] Yevhen Karas, preface to the 2006 Catalogue of Works "A4, Ballpoint Pen".
Since 2010, exhibitions and catalogs have been held in partnership and with the assistance of Igor Voronov and the Voronov Art Foundation.
Initially, the project was limited to artists, but since 2012, the project's research area has expanded to include works by architects, and textual works that carried a semantic load along with the aesthetic have been actively accepted. Later, composers, writers, fashion designers, and poets joined the project. The goal of the project was finally formed - to show the metaphysics of thought through its aesthetics in everyday material and technology (A4, ballpoint pen). In 2014, the project was attended by such writers as Serhiy Zhadan, Oksana Zabuzhko, Taras Prokhasko, Viktor Neborak, Kateryna Repa; composers Valentyn Silvestrov, Andriy Shchetynsky, Sviatoslav Lunev, Vita Polevaya, Andriy Merhel; in 2015 - Yuriy Andrukhovych, Katia Babkina, Anastasia Dmytruk. In total, the project has more than 1000 authors.
