The Schedule of Chaos

Ukrainian artist Sergey Poyarkov created this book-and-pack set from a series of paintings and drawings devoted to the 70th anniversary of the Donetsk Regional Art Museum.

The Russian title, «Беспорядок дня или Расписание хаоса», sets up a paradox: the attempt to impose a daily schedule on life, or a system on a pack of cards, does not remove chaos but gives it a form. Poyarkov fills that form with unrelated images of one-eyed fish, birds, machines and human objects.

Above: the book with its pack of illustrated cards

The book presents each card alongside a reproduction of the corresponding painting, a preliminary sketch and a physical sample inserted into a pocket in the page. Each card has its own spread, with a pencil or tonal sketch on the left and the finished colour work, in oil, acrylic or mixed media, on the right. The medium, year and original dimensions are noted beside each work. The artist also explains the principles behind the pack's construction and symbolism.

The pack has 54 cards, including two Jokers. The characters are grotesque, anthropomorphic fish and bird creatures, each with one enormous eye. Shown only in profile, they carry objects and attributes of human life: hats, canes, musical instruments, mechanisms and wings. Each suit follows its own symbolic key, encoded within the images through numbers, objects and compositional details:

• Hearts are the seven colours of the rainbow.
• Diamonds are the seven notes in a musical scale.
• Clubs are the seven days of the week.
• Spades are the seven letters of the author's last name.

Sixes are linked to the four oceans, tens to the phases of the Moon, jacks to the seasons, queens to the four cardinal directions and aces to the card suits. The artist treats the two Jokers as elements that do not fit the system, guaranteeing its inevitable collapse. The pack measures 78 by 49 mm. See the back