А4, кулькова ручка (англ. A4, ballpoint) - 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 project was founded in 2006 by Yevhen Karas with the active participation of Kyiv artists such as Mykola Kryvenko, Vinny Reunov, Tiberiy Silvashi, Vlada Ralko, Volodymyr Budnikov, Anatoliy Kryvolap, Oleksandr Roitburd, Oleksandr Babak, Stas Volyazlovsky, Oleksiy Apollonov, Ilya Isupov and others. The initial idea was to combine ordinary everyday office stationery and elite art. The project was started in open-call format. Anyone can send works without age, citizenship or other social restrictions. “The idea for this project was born from a conversation with Mykola Kryvenko, who suggested to make an exhibition of artists who would draw on regular office paper. Then Vinny Reunov completed the idea in its final format “A4, ballpoint”. “We invited leading and young Ukrainian artists to the project. Some of them formed an ideological council and took actively involved in the competitive part of the project. Although even the classics were subject to aesthetic ostracism.”[1] Yevhen Karas, preface to the 2006 Catalog “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.
Due to the global pandemic and war, the project was forced to take a break. But in 2024, thanks to the efforts of interested in people and partners, the project was resumed. An open call was opened on the topic of reserching the war years of Ukraine and the deep internal transformations of Ukrainian society. More than 1,000 authors participated in the project. The project acquired a new form and name as the exhibition exposition of the project "Ukrainian Diary 2022-2023". It was presented on 28 of March 2024 in the Ukrainian House, one of the leading exhibition venues in Kyiv, and published in a format of a catalog, in partnership with the ArtHuss printing house. The catalog presents drawings by the winners of the last open competition, which took the period from 2022.
У 2025 році проєкт був двічі представлений у Німеччині, в рамках міждисциплінарного проєкту «UKRAINISCHES KUNSTTAGEBUCH. Aus der Vergangenheit für die Zukunft». Першим відкрився exhibition took place in Cologne on the 22 of February, then on the 24 of February in Friedrichshafen as doubleexhibition.
