Maria Vtorushyna Curator, art historian, researcher Portfolio
2026
Bio
Selected Publications
Maria Vtorushyna (they/them) is an art historian, researcher, and curator, and a PhD candidate at Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder) with a particular interest in notions of freedom, queer and feminist epistemologies, gender diversity, and the coloniality of gender. They’re based in Berlin.
Weird Sisters, catalogue of Šejla Kamerić exhibition at Francisco Carolinum, Linz. Schlebrügge:Editor
Maria previously worked as a researcher at the Centre for Gender and Diversity at Maastricht University and hold an MA in Art Theory and History from Kyiv's National Academy of Visual Arts and Architecture. Maria was editor-in-chief of Artslooker Magazine (2023-24). They worked at the international department of Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and were a curatorial fellow at Künstlerhaus Bethanien. Maria were the artistic director of Kyiv Art Week from 2016 to 2021.
The history of the Crimean Tatars, decolonization, memory, and the loss of home: the exhibition House of Permanent Exile. Suspilne.Culture Queerness and Death. Pages from Ukrainian Artists’ Wartime Diaries MOST Magazine, 2025 Queer and Death in Ukrainian Wartime Art Archives Krytyka, 2024 Coloniality of Gender / Patriarchy and Power Ukrainian Decolonial Glossary, 2024 ZenTeh. Swallowed by Darkness. Essay for the show at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, 2024
CV-Brief 2025-now - Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder) , PhD candidate 2025 - Staatliche Kunstsammungen Dresden, International Department, Exhibition Management 2024 - Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Curatorial Fellow 2023-24 - Artslooker Magazine, Editor-in-Chief 2022-2023 - Maastricht University, Centre For Gender and Diversity, Researcher 2019-2022 - Set Art Foundation, Kyiv, Chief Curator 2016-2021 - Kyiv Art Week, Artistic Director 2014-2016 - Bereznitsky Aesthetics, Kyiv, Curator
Who made the Schinkel Pavillon and the Brücke-Museum use Aesopian language? Artslooker, 2024 It Was Their Job to Pull the Sun Across the Sky catalogue Maria Kulikovska exhibition Francisco Carolinum, Linz. Schlebrügge. Editor, 2024 Meanwhile at the Khanenkos'. Conversation About the Museum in Wartime, Emptiness, and Love, Artslooker, 2023 The Right to Desire. Ukrainian Queer Art from the 11 Century to the 1900s Artslooker, 2021 Joseph Beyus Reenactments: Everyone's an Artist, Your Art, 2020
A Heart that Beats: Focus on Ukrainian Queer Art Schwules Museum Berlin, 06.06.2025-06.04.2026 Artists: Yana Bachynska/Jan Bačynsjkyj, Vic Bakin, Yevgenia Belorusets, Anatoly Belov, Andrii Dostliev, Ihor Dychenko, Anton Karyuk, Alina Kleytman, Anton Shebetko, Svitlana Shymko & Galka Yarmanova, Sergei Parajanov, Roman Viktyuk Curators: Maria Vtorushyna, Anton Shebetko
A Heart that Beats: Focus on Queer Ukrainian Art, 2025-2026, exhibition view
A Heart That Beats is the group exhibition to show queer embodiment in Ukrainian art in the context of the history of non-heteroconforming communities in Ukraine – under the Soviet regime, in the first years of independence, and currently in resistance to the Russian invasion. The artistic positions tell of struggles against discrimination and exclusion, trace the influence of historically significant moments on queer bodies and queer relationships, and show how queer identity, gender, love and belonging are currently discussed and represented. The exhibition unfolds in three chapters and is accompanied by a timeline highlighting the most significant events in queer art and culture in Ukraine. First, queer elective affinities in Ukrainian history up to 1991 are traced. At that time, queer bodies were largely invisible, queer art was not part of the art scene, and there was no easy access to the queer community.
Anatoly Belov, Homophobia Today—Genocide Tomorrow!, 2012, drawing, stickers Anton Shebetko, Simeiz, 2022-2026, video 13”, carpet
Work Title, Artist Name Surname, 2390, Media.
Alina Kleytman, A Place to See Before You Die, Video, 2023 Schwules Museum, A Heart that Beats, 2025-26
In the second chapter, which tells the story of the first years of Ukrainian independence from 1991-2014, we see how a queer infrastructure emerged in Ukraine. Queer artists break taboos and gain freedom of action in the face of resistance to conservative, religious and far-right groups. The final, third chapter takes us from 2014 to the present, starting with the Russian occupation of Crimea and ending with the complete invasion in 2022. This chapter focuses on a new generation of Ukrainian artists who, in the midst of violence, destruction and loss, are finding ways to process war traumas, preserve memory and make queer life in Ukraine visible.
Reviews: Tagesspiegel “Ausstellung im Schwulen Museum: Queere ukrainische Kunst und ihr Kampf um Sichtbarkeit” Author: Valeriia Semeniuk
Andrii Dostliev, It's only OK when he is dancing, ongoing since 2023, archival photos, video loop
taz – Die Tageszeitung “Schlagende Herzen und Gottes Kraftwerk” Author: Sophie Jung Ukrainska Pravda “Hopomphobia Today - Genocide Tomorrow! Ukrainian queer art in Berlin” Author: Kostyantyn Doroshenko Vogue Czechoslovakia “Srdce, které bije. Berlínská výstava vás zavede do světa ukrajinského queer umění” Author: Jana Patočková Queer.de “Mit Herz und Haltung: Queerness in der ukrainischen Kunst” Author: Axel Krämer Svitlana Shymko, Galka Yarmanova, The Wonderful Years2018, video, 9” min
Alina Kleytman, Bioinstallation: Prosthesis, 2022-2023 and Yana Bachynska/Jan Bačynsjkyj, My Grandmother Proposes Me to Become a Woman, 2023, Schwules Museum. Berlin, 2025-26
Exhibition assistant
Change to Come Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, Dresden, 07.11. 2024 -16. 03.2025
Exhibition view, Change to Come, Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, 2024
Artists: Marian Bogusz, Wojciech Bruszewski, Rafał Bujnowski, Crisis Kiosk (Yulia Krivich, Marta Romankiv, Weronika Zalewska), Oskar Dawicki, Maria Jarema, Renata Rara Kamińska, Daniel Kotowski, Jarosław Kozłowski, Katarzyna Kozyra, Bogdan Łopieński, Marcin Maciejowski, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Teresa Murak, Włodzimierz Pawlak, Dominika Olszowy, Joanna Piotrowska, Agnieszka Polska, Katarzyna Przezwańska, Przybyszki, Józef Robakowski, Wilhelm Sasnal, Ala Savashevich, Mikołaj Sobczak, Marek Sobczyk, Julita Wójcik, Andrzej Wróblewski, Jerzy Jurry Zieliński, Paweł Żukowski. Curators: Magdalena Komornicka, Maria Isserlis My duties: Сommunication with the artists; organisation of the finissage performance programme; narrative and financial reporting to the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation. The show features artists who live and work in Poland and focuses on their desire for social, political, and artistic change. Criticism and “engagement” have been one of the key phenomenon in Polish art in recent decades. In view of the dynamic global upheavals, however, the exhibition does not limit itself to Poland, but raises fundamental questions about the relationship between art and society.In the exhibition, a dialogue is created between historical works of art and contemporary ones. The historical section presents key figures in Polish art of the twentieth century, their strategies and artistic practices, starting with the doctrine of socialist realism in the 1940s and 1950s, through the so-called “Small Stabilization” period in the 1960s and 1970s, down to the 1980s and the introduction of martial law. After the country regained its independence in the 1990s, “critical art” emerged.
Crisis Kiosk (Yulia Krivich, Marta Romankiv, Weronika Zalewska), Change to Come, Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, 2024
Exhibition assistant
Sounds of Bethany Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin,19.07.2024 – 18.08.2024 Curator: Carsten Seiffarth Artistic Director: Christoph Tannert My duties: Communication with the artists, texts for the exhibition catalogue, grant applications.
Nika Schmidt, Ton-Ton, 2024. View at the exhibition Sounds of Bethany, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, 2024
Robert Lippok, What is Dance?, Meinblau Projektraum Berlin, 2017 (c) Tommaso Revelant, Berlin
Kristina Kubisch, Conference of the Trees, 1988-89. View at the exhibition Sounds of Bethany, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, 2024. Photo: Galia Feiermann
In 2024, Künstlerhaus Bethanien is celebrating its 50-year anniversary.The exhibition seeks to make two layers of sonic temporality tangible: on the one hand, it showcases sound sculptures and objects made by previous exhibitors and resident artists (highlighting historic approaches), while on the other it presents entirely new or newly adapted sound installations specifically developed for this anniversary project. Sounds of Bethany will include historic sound works by: Wojciech Bruszewski, Terry Fox, Rolf Julius, Joe Jones, Christina Kubisch, Rolf Langebartels, Benoît Maubrey, Paul Panhuysen, Martin Riches, and Qin Yufen, And new sound installations by: Frieder Butzmann & Thomas Kiesel, Evelina Deicmane, Raviv Ganchrow, Via Lewandowsky, Robert Lippok, Claudia Märzendorfer, Nika Schmitt, Ivan Svitlychnyi, and Maia Urstad. In addition, historical image and sound contributions from the archive of the Künstlerhaus and from the following artists will be on display: Ulrich Eller, Nils Krüger, Johan Lorbeer, and Gordon Monahan. e-flux: Sounds of Bethany
Dry and Hollow: Kvirtet Performance Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin, 26.06.2024 Curator: Maria Vtorushyna
Kvirtet, Dry and Hollow, performance in Künstlerhaus Bethanien, June 2024. Photos: Galya Feierman
Kvirtet, Dry and Hollow, performance in Künstlerhaus Bethanien, June 2024. Photos: Galya Feierman
The Kvirtet collective performance, Dry and Hollow, is a meditative story reflecting on the spiraling and never-ending hollowness of mind tunnels. The performance is a result of vocal meditations and working through personal traumas of loss, and reestablishing the self. Stepping onto hollow, dry, and cracking ground, still moving forward while the legs stick out into nowhere — the unknown future. In this space between collapse and continuation, the body remembers the future through the past. Kvirtet is a collective of non-binary performers, interdisciplinary artists, singers, and entertainers, founded in 2021 in Kyiv. The collective's practices feature live music, lavish dress, and vocals. They are rooted in Ballroom culture, a movement with a long legacy that originated in the POC and queer underground scene of 1970s New York, with intricate dance acts that recontextualized poses from the covers of high fashion magazines. Kvirtet collective and its members have collaborated with Berghain in Berlin, Hamburger Bahnhof–Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in Berlin, Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, Closer, Otel, and Dzherelo in Kyiv, Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan, among others.
Once Leda Found an Egg, Blue like a Hyacinth Mriya Gallery, New York, 22.02-11.04.2025 Curator: Maria Vtorushyna The exhibition title draws from a fragment of Sappho’s lost verse: “They say once Leda found an egg—blue like a hyacinth.” The myth of Leda’s assault by Zeus in the form of a swan has long justified violence against the female body. Sappho’s version seems to be an alternative: Leda discovers an egg—a symbol of life’s beginning—left by another woman, who was also escaping from the god. Central to Maria Kulikovska’s work is a feminist critique of power. Kulikovska’s artistic practice is deeply rooted in personal and national histories. Her work reflects the traumatic consequences of war, forced migration, and the ongoing struggle for self-expression and bodily autonomy. Born in Kerch, Crimea, Kulkiovska was banned from her homeland following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. While ovaries and a womb are not necessary to be a mother, nor do they define a necessity to be a woman, Kulikovska’s new series tells the story of a mother and daughter who shared one body. Created with the women of her family from Crimea—mothers and healers—Kulikovska’s works, presented in this show, are rooted in their shared resilience.
Maria Kulikovska, 880, 2019, ballistic soap, ashes. Photo courtesy: Mriya Gallery
Cultbytes “Maria Kulikovska Resists Imperialism and Patriarchy”Author: Qingyuan Deng Whitehot Magazine “Maria Kulikovska’s Art of Survival: Destruction, Rebirth, and the Politics of the Body” Author: Ken Krantz
Maria Kulikovska, Untitled, 2021, Kyiv, still from the video. Video: Daria Biliak; music: Alexey Shmurak.
Performing Kyiv Cabaret Voltaire, Schauspielhaus Zürich Zurich Art Weekend, 2023 Performing Kyiv is a collaboration between Zurich Art Weekend and Kyiv Art Week. Curated with Olena Iegorova. Uta Bekaia, Roots/ფესვები Alevtina Kakhidze, An Attempt at Comprehension: Scripted Performance with Immanuel Kant, Lettuce, and Rose Nika Timashkova, Good Bye, Bad Bye Maria Kulikovska, Lustration/Ablution
Uta Bekaia, Roots/ფესვები. Sourse: utabekaia.com
Through this title, Kyiv is understood not only as an old European capital but as a unique practice of an international community bound by solidarity. The emergency for solidarity tests what things and ideas truly mean in a necessity to act and orient oneself immediately. This embodied, situated position makes ambiguous answers, frozen conflicts, or a dirty peace impossible. The whole infrastructure seems to need an epistemological reevaluation of the ideas of humanity and justice. The key question is: While seeking peace, do we all seek justice? We invited four artists to perform an up-to-30 minute piece, reflecting on that question. Each performance had two sequences.
Nika Timashkova, Good Bye, Bad Bye, Performing Kyiv, Schauspeilhaus Zurich, 2023
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Uta Bekaia, Roots/ფესვები Performance at the courtyard of Helmhaus Zürich
The performance delves into the representation of traditional attire through the lens of queer expression. The artist transforms into a living representation of Chokha—a traditional Georgian male garment— by incorporating movements inspired by ancient rituals from the Caucasus region.
Uta Bekaia, Roots/ფესვები, Performing Kyiv, 2023. Performance at the courtyard of Helmhaus Zürich. Photography by Lee Yellosno. Courtesy of Zurich Art Weekend
Weaving poetry and traditional Georgian singing, the performance aims to liberate queer identity from the harmful masculinity typically associated with Chokha and to integrate queer histories into traditional cultural narratives.
Maria Kulikovska Lustration/Ablution Performance at Cabaret Voltaire
Maria Kulikovska was born in Kerch, Сrimea. The beginning of the Russian war against Ukraine in 2014 and the annexation of Crimea deeply affected the artist. In 2014, the armed Russian proxies raided the Izolyatsia Platform For Cultural Initiatives in Donetsk. Maria Kulikovska’s sculptures, copies of her own body, cast for Izolyatsia, as well as many other artworks, were destroyed. During the Lustration / Ablution Maria Kulikovska is in the bathtub together with her sculpture-copy and she lustrates herself. The artist washes her body and face — she is extracting a sacrifice, thus cleaning up from traumas. “I wash my face with my own hands, I brush my hair, I peel off my soap skin, I wipe myself and scrub”—Maria Kulikovska explains. Maria Kulikovska , Lustration/Ablution. Performing Kyiv, 2023, Performance at Cabaret Voltaire
Recharge&Revolt Melkweg Amsterdam, 18.10-26.11.2023 Artists: Jan Bačynsjkyi/Yana Bachynska, Vic Bakin, Lesha Berezovskiy, Illia Chernysh, Kateryna Lysovenko, Oleksandr Halishchuk, Alex King, Zoya Laktionova, Mariia Leonenko, Rebel Queers, Anton Shebetko, Nick J. Swarth, Angelika Ustymenko, as well as documentation of QueerCabaret Magic Infant performance. Curators: Maria Vtorushyna, Anton Shebetko Rave culture is not a given and carefree experience for everyone. This exhibition is conceived by Melkweg in collaboration with invited curators. The exhibition begins wih 2014, the year of Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, Russia’s occupation of Crimea and parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. His year marked Ukraine’s decisive turn towards democracy. Techno and rave culture flourished, becoming spaces of resistance, queer solidarity, and queer self-expression. Raves even became forms of protest, including Kyiv Pride in 2021 and antipolice demos in Kyiv the same year. Yet rave culture is not universally carefree. Today, as Ukraine fights for its survival, queer identities face tensions with nationalist ideas of Ukrainian identity and an urgent need for protection and visibility. Mobilisation laws, which predominantly affect men, have created particular challenges for trans* people who had been unable to update their legal documents, leaving them vulnerable to discrimination and misclassification by military enlistment offices. arest one at the moment.
Recharge&Revolt, Melkweg. Exhibition view. Photo: Anton Shebetko
Glamcult “Recharge and Revolt at MELKWEG”, Editorial Recharge&Revolt, Melkweg. Exhibition view. Photo: Anton Shebetko
Angelik Ustymenko, Ukrainian Queer Fighters For Freedom, 2022, Video & Angelik Ustymenko with Alex King Rebel Queers: Ukraine's Queer Resistance, 2023, Video Recharge&Revolt, Melkweg
Jan Bačynsjkyi, Pantheon of Fleeing Spirits, 2022– 2023. Saint Mom, 2022; Birthgiving, 2022; Traditional Lesbianism, 2022; Queer priest, 2023. Fabric bas-reliefs. echarge&Revolt, Melkweg Photo: Anton Shebetko
From the Battlefield SEA Foundation & public program at De Pont Museum and LocHal Tilburg, 13.07-23.07.2022 Artists: Katya Buchatska, Chantal Rens, Nick J. Swarth, Alevtina Kakhidze, Eveline van der Peijl, Sasha Kurmaz, Yulia Protsyshyn, Leo Trotsenko, Tamara Turliun, Andrei Liashcuk, Roos Vogels, Chikako Watanabe Curator: Maria Vtorushyna
Leo Trotsenko, Katya Buchatska`s Alarm Tablecloth from Replica and Differences Series, 2022.
From The Battlefield is a program in dialogue with artists, curators and writers from Ukraine and the Netherlands, about living life through a war situation. It aims to amplify the direct testimony and evidence of those who are committed to protecting freedom and hope. By presenting words, notes, images, documents, and artworks, From The Battlefield focuses on the strength of making small decisions when also sacrificing individual safety and freedom. The war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine in 2014 escalated to a horrific level on 24 February 2022. The destruction and the war crimes committed by Russia have brought hundreds of thousands of deaths, ruined cities, and caused the emigration of millions of people. At this very moment, the ideas of the brightest theorists do not seem enough to frame an immediate productive dialogue between the Western world and the frontier in the current war.Cultivating small and fragile experiences that help individuals and communities live through inhumane conditions can be as significant as earning the world's solidarity attention or receiving material and tactical support. Kyiv Post “Artistic Dialogue Between Ukraine, Netherlands Debates Freedom, Dignity, War” Author: Kostyantyn Doroshenkо
Exhibition view, SEA Foundation, 2022
Kyiv Art Week From the project's launch in 2016 until December 2021, I served as the artistic director of Kyiv Art Week festival.
Makhmoud Bakshi, Endless Celebration, 2016, presented by Izolyatsia, KAW 2017
Welcoming more than 30,000 visitors each year, Kyiv Art Week was a festival that established connections and forged relationships between cultural actors from Ukraine and all around the world. It was a forum where artists, gallerists, and curators built connections with collectors, art patrons, philanthropists, businesses, and governmental initiatives with our support. Kyiv Art Week also backed presentations of nonprofit international projects and annually presented an educational program for a wide audience, where listeners got acquainted with acute trends in contemporary art and art theory, simply and clearly explained. Kyiv Art Fair was an instrument for sustaining and regulating financial and market relations between galleries, artist-run spaces, collectors, and other institutions, making transactions and negotiations clear, visible, and open for discussion. Apollo “How the City of Kyiv is Reckoning the Soviet Past” Author: Arthur Post The Calvert “Make Most of Kyiv Art Week” Author: Samuel Goff
Naked Room & Ist Publishing book stand, KAW 2019
Thierry Geoffroy, from Emergency Mobile series,2018 commissioned by Sabsay
YourArt “Kyiv Art Week 2020: 17 Participants on Their Booths and Art Online” Author: Nastia Kalyta
Mykhailo Alekseenko, Almost Today! (Незабаром сьогодні!), 2018, Kyiv Art Week
Kyiv Art Week Highlight: Unveiling of the Wall of Rememberance Baikovo Cemetery, 2018 The Wall of Remembrance was created by Ada Rybachuk and Volodymyr Melnychenko for the Memory Park ensemble at Kyiv's Baikove Cemetery, next to the crematorium. The artwork was almost complete when Soviet authorities buried it in concrete in 1982. The 214-metre-long bas-relief was conceived as a symbolic journey through scenes from mythology and human history. The artists intended it to help mourners process grief, turning personal loss into a shared reflection on life and death. The project evoked an ocean of collective human memory, addressing future generations and, on a cosmic scale, visitors to Earth.
The Wall of Remembrance, Ada Rybachuk and Volodymyr Melnychenko, sketches, 1960s–1980s
Figures such as the Guardian Woman and Prometheus, and allegories of Love, Motherhood and Heroism, guided those accompanying the dead toward acceptance of death. As visitors moved along the wall to the crematorium, their grief would be fired in the kilns of human suffering and emerge as wisdom and compassion. Work began in 1968 and lasted 14 years, with Rybachuk and Melnychenko shaping the reliefs directly on site. The project grew out of their earlier work on a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust at Babyn Yar in Kyiv. Their proposal, When the World Collapses: Babyn Yar, was selected as one of the strongest entries in 1965 but was never built. In spring 1982, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, ordered the Wall of Remembrance sealed.
The Wall of Remembrance, Ada Rybachuk and Volodymyr Melnychenko, 1982
About 300 mixer-loads of cement were poured over the nearly completed reliefs, destroying the artwork. The same workers who had helped create it were made to destroy it. The events devastated Ada Rybachuk. She recalled: “When they destroyed our reliefs, for about 10 years, I did not sense color, the world became black and white for me.”
The Wall of Remembrance, Ada Rybachuk, Volodymyr Melnychenko, unveiling of the fragment , Kyiv Art Week, 2018
Ada Rybachyk died in 2010; Volodymyr Melnychenko continued working. The artist had been trying to secure permission to restore and uncover the work. He initiated several legal proceedings and compiled a huge archive of documents. But everyone said it was impossible. As a municipal festival, Kyiv Art Week initiated the revision of the process; we helped to secure city and cemetery permissions and funding to uncover the first section of the bas-relief in 2018, proving it could be done. Volodymyr Melnychenko chose to begin with the head of the Berehynia figure. In 2021, thanks to the efforts of the ARVM Foundation further 120 square metres were uncovered, revealing the figure of a woman blowing a horn to announce the beginning of war. RadioSvoboda “Prometheus Beneath the Concrete: How the Wall of Memory in Kyiv Was Created, Died, and Reborn” Author: Eduard Andrischenko The Village “Why Renovate The Wall of Remembrance”
The Wall of Remembrance, Ada Rybachuk, Volodymyr Melnychenko, unveiling of the fragment , Kyiv Art Week, 2018
Kyiv Art Week Highlight: Art Fair
Lina Kim, Enrique Radigales, Charla Chaim. Casa Nova Arte e Cultura Contemporânea, São Paulo. KAF, 2018.
From 2016 to 2020, Kyiv Art Fair established itself as a vibrant and influential platform for contemporary art, bringing together leading Ukrainian and international galleries, artists, collectors, and cultural professionals through inspiring exhibitions and dynamic cultural exchange. In 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we created an interactive online space. One of the objectives of Kyiv Art Fair was to support artist-run spaces. We provided free participation and technical support, reserving at least 10 booths for artist-run spaces each year.
Julia Beliaeva and Ernie Luley Superstar. KWADRAT Gallery, Berlin. KAF, 2018.
Julia Yalanzhi, Cell Practice. Invogue#Art Gallery, Odesa. KAF, 2017.
Throughout the years we have collaborated with more than 100 galleries who came to Kyiv, among them: ArtBeat (now BukhiaVakhania; Tbilisi and Berlin), Artsvit (now DCC; Dnipro), Asortymentna Kimnata (IvanoFrankivsk), BWA Warszawa (Warsaw), Casa Nova Arte e Cultura Contemporânea (São Paulo), Galerie Volker Diehl (Berlin), Izolyatsia (Kyiv), KWADRAT (Berlin), Labirynt (Lublin), Meno Niša (Vilnius), Pola Magnetyczne (Warsaw), Sabsay (Copenhagen), Scherbenko Art Centre (Kyiv), Socl:e (Paris), Stadium (Berlin), The Naked Room (Kyiv).
Kyiv Art Week Highlights Footnote: Volodymyrskyi Market May 21 – 26, 2019 Artists: Nicolas Grospierre, Marymont, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Józef Robakowski, Artur Żmijewski Curators: Barbara Piwowarska & Guillaume Rouleau
The main building of the Volodymyrskyi Market in Kyiv (1968) is one of the markets for consumer goods that were built across Ukraine from the 1960s, as part of a reconfiguration of the trade in the USSR. An exhibition and a series of talks during the market’s usual opening hours question how the trade is organized by a society and how a society is reorganized by the trade. Focus is put on the building's striking architecture and trading activities. Footnote is an ongoing project by Barbara Piwowarska commenced in 2010.
Footnote: Volodymyrskyi Market. Photo: Serhiy Grinkevitch
Užupis: Responsibility for Freedom May 21 – 26, 2018 Artists: Fedir Aleksandrovych, Ina Budryte, Serhiy Zakharov, Severija Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė, Jolanta Kyzikaitė, Valeriy Miloserdov, Kyrylo Protsenko, Rimas Sakalauskas, Antanas Sutkus. Curator: Kostyantyn Doroshenko
The responsibility is both a consequence of freedom and its condition.Therefore, those unwilling to bear the responsibility found themselves under dictatorship. Užupis (Zarichchia in Ukrainian) used to be a depressive neighbourhood of the capital of the Republic of Lithuania. In the 1990s it became popular with the creative community of artists, film directors, actors, musicians and writers. In 1996 the Alternative Art Centre was founded there. And in 1997 a group of artists declared the establishment of a conceptual state there. Severija Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė, With Love from…, 2018. Uzupis: Responsibility for Freedom
Contact Zones Brave! Factory Festival Kyiv, 2021 Artists: AntiGonna, Volt Agapeev, Julia Beliaeva, Danylo Halkin, Vasya Dmitrik, Kateryna Lysovenko, Taras Kovach, Rita Kulik and Ivan Sai, Anton Shebetko, Andriy Siguntsov, Variable Name, Sasha Popruga, Oleksiy Sai Curator: Maria Vtorushyna Art is a sparkling rivulet, running through the fractures of the capitalist world's tectonic plates. You can come to this spring every day, or you may never stumble upon it. The experience of an accidental encounter lies at the heart of the Brave! Factory Festival 2021 exposition. Artist’s statements reveal the subtle presence of ideas, strategies and hopes of the past (distant and near) in that single moment where you will meet them. Pandemic life is like a thin film on the water surface: between dreaming and reality, between total control over the individual and an attempt to maintain integrity and freedom. The contact zones appear as swell on the surface. It is caused by vibration from the touches between communities isolated from each other in space and time.
Julia Beliaeva,Hotel Quarantine, 2021,video,Contact Zones. Photo: Mishka Bochkarev
NV.ua “Contact Zones. Art at the Factory”Author: Kseniya Ulianova YourArt “See What the “Zones of Contact” Art Program at BRAVE! FACTORY Festival 2021 Was Like” Author: Nastia Kalyta Olexiy Sai, Advertising Pause. 2021, 4-channel video, Contact Zones. Photo: Mishka Bochkarev
Taras Kovach, Untitled, from De-Ne-De series, Contact! Zones at Kyivmetrobud Factory, 2021
Taras Kovach works with the language of Soviet public art and Ukraine's decommunisation policy, exploring the construction and destruction of collective memory. In 1981 the Kyiv Metropolitan (Kyiv Metro) was awarded the State Order of the Red Banner of Labour for its achievements in passenger service. A source of collective pride at that time. Later, this fact was erased from the Kyiv Metrobud Factory’s situated memory alongside the traces of the individual worker’s awards as ideological propaganda. With silhouettes of medals and awards, placed as banners across the territory of the Kyiv Metrobud Factory, Kovach resurfaces memory to be processed with its controversies, not simply erased. This is a continuation of a project which began in 2016 as part of the exhibition "De Ne De." Taras Kovach, Untitled, from De-Ne-De series, Contact Zones, Kyiv, 2021. Photo: Veronika Shchukina
Freedom Street: Evgeniy Pavlov Set Art Foundation Kyiv, 12.09-10.11.2019 Curators: Maria Vtorushyna, Kateryna Iakovlenko There was such a powerful social feeling of despair that even love couldn’t cover it. — Evgeniy Pavlov Born in Kharkiv in 1949, Evgeniy Pavlov aimed to document the most conflicting and distressing aspects of reality that Soviet and post-Soviet societies attempted to exclude from their worldview. Сonsistently defending creative freedom amid the everyday, often imperceptible control exercised by those in power have been central to Evgeniy Pavlov’s practice since the early 1970s. His methods and visionary approach were too radical to be publicly exhibited under the Soviet regime and even in the 1990s. Freedom Street explores the artist’s responses to taboos in Soviet society, his relationship with the authorities, and his private, lyrical world, shaped by dialogues with masters of world art. Pavlov experimented with lots of different ways of making art, like photography, video, painting, and happenings. In 1971, Evgeniy Pavlov, alongside Yurii Rupin, co-founded the Vremja (Time) group, which included Borys Mykhailov, Oleg Malioanyi, Hennadii Tubaliev, Oleksandr Suprun, Oleksandr Sytnychenko, and Anatolii Makiienko. A year later, in 1972, he produced a landmark series, Violin, featuring a group performance and a photo session with nude male participants—an act strictly prohibited in the USSR and labeled as “pornography”.
Evgeniy Pavlov, Freedom Street, Set Art Foundation, 2019
Evgeniy Pavlov, Volodymyr Shaposhnikov and Tatiana Pavlova. From the series Second Heaven, 1998-2003, Set Art Foundation, 2019
Evgeniy Pavlov, Freedom Street, exhibition view (Hall 1,1970s), Set Art Foundation, 2019
The exhibition includes works from nearly all of Pavlov’s major series. These include Violin (1972), a landmark series featuring the male nude; Delirium Tremens (1983), a visual documentation of the state known as delirium tremens; and The House of Life (1975–2003), a chronicle of everyday life and material culture in the late Soviet Union and newly independent Ukraine. In 2003, Pavlov made the decision to withdraw from the art events, discontinuing his attendance at public events and ceasing involvement in art production. Evgeniy Pavlov (born 1949 in Kharkiv) is a Ukrainian photographer and co-founder of the Vremja (Time) group, established in 1971. Since 2001, he has taught at the Kharkiv State Academy of Culture. His works are held in collections worldwide, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Cincinnati Art Museum, and Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University. The Eye of Photography Magazine “Evgeniy Pavlov – Freedom Street” Your Art “‘Freedom Street’: How Evgeniy Pavlov’s Exhibition Was Created” Author: Nastia Kalyta
Evgeniy Pavlov, Freedom Street, exhibition view (Hall 3, 1990s), Set Art Foundation, 2019
Evgeniy Pavlov with Volodymyr Shaposhnikov and Tatiana Pavlova. From the series Common Field (Based on the 1972 Violin series), 1995-1996
Object of Desire The House of Clothes, Kyiv, 19.06 - 21.06.2020 Artists: Borys Kashapov, Oksana Chepelyk, Liliya Chavaga, Lena Siyatovska, Stan Kvitko. Curators: Maria Vtorushina, Lesia Kulchynska For the first three nights after the lockdown in Kyiv, from 19 to 21 June, the House of Clothes’ showcases are transformed into an exposition space for Set Art Laboratory residency participants. Showcases are created to transform things into objects of desire. Whatever is placed in a showcase will always seem better and more desirable. The mechanism of this transformation is a transparent but impenetrable barrier. The object is very close, as if prepared especially for you. But it is still not in your hands. A showcase is an essential tool of market relations, through which the presentation of products becomes possible. But what becomes of an art piece in a shop's showcase? "It is nonsense to loiter in the streets, especially if there is nothing to buy," says the heroine of Luis Buñuel's surrealist film That Obscure Object of Desire. Contemporary streets are overflowing with seductive objects, so when there is no possibility of possessing them, it is sometimes better not to go out at all. However, we invite you to do just that: to loiter among showcases, appropriating nothing. Take this opportunity to explore your relationship with the unattainable. What do you feel when it is impossible to touch something tempting? When something is incomprehensible? When does that which attracts remain indifferent toward you? When does that which masquerades as a product become impossible to appropriate?
Kinderseele, site-specific installation, Object of Desire, the House of Clothes, Kyiv, 2020
Your Art “Accumulator of Desire: About the Exhibition Object of Desire” Author: Ivan Skoryna Olena Siyatovska, Felt Cute, performance, Object of Desire, the House of Clothes, Kyiv, 202
Earthmate
Gryshko National Botanical Garden, Kyiv, 2020 Artists: llia Chychkan, Ihor Tyshchenko, Anna Zviahintseva, Borys Kashapov, Anton Saienko, Yana Bachynska, Climate Art Laboratories, Plastikwood, Slava Kryzhanovskyi, Daria Koltsova, Oleksii Zinchenko, Lana Kaufman, Yuliia Beliaieva, Maksym Dondyuk, Gorn, Anton Reznikov, Alina Maksymenko, Yuliia Radionova. Curators: Maria Vtorushyna, Andrii Siguntsov, Daria Koltsova.
Anton Saienko, Untitled, site-specific work, Gryshko National Botanical Garden, Kyiv, 2020
Earthmate begins with the difficulty of recognising an ecological catastrophe that is already unfolding. Artists and curators ask what environmental awareness can mean in practice, and whether relations with the non-human world can move beyond an exclusively human point of view. The exhibition presents doubts, fears and hopes rather than a set of reassuring slogans. Its questions extend from interspecies ethics to the temptation to retreat into virtual worlds or private fantasies. Can another relationship with the ecosystem be practised, and what happens when its demands meet the limitations of local production? Earthmate’s guest project at the Greenhouse of the National Gryshko Botanical Garden, Extraordinary Climate Movement, explores climate change in Ukraine through art and science. Developed within the Climate Art Laboratories, it grew out of an eight-day Carpathian residency in March 2019, bringing together seven artist-activist and artist-scientist tandems. Artists: Kostiantyn Vasiukov, Tetiana Korneeva, Svitlana Krakovska, Lidiia Kryshtop, Karyna Lazaruk, Semen Polomanyi, Svitlana Pototska, ruїns collective (Teta Tsybulnyk and Elias Parvulesco), Iryna Sokolova, and Maksym Khodak. Curators: Iryna Zamurueva and Oleksandr Dolhyi, with the Climate Art Laboratories participants.
Extraordinary Climate Movement, Earthmate, Greenhouse of Gryshko National Botanical Garden, Kyiv, 2020
Extraordinary Climate Movement, Earthmate, Greenhouse of Gryshko National Botanical Garden, Kyiv, 2020
Anna Zvyagintseva, Transplant a Tree Happenning at Gryshko National Botanical Garden
The text for the happening is written by the artist: This chestnut grew among the concrete of the scandalous construction on Gonchara 17/23, Kyiv The struggle between activists and developers has been going on for 12 years.
Anna Zvyagintseva, Transplant a Tree, happening, Earthmate, Gryshko National Botanical Garden, Kyiv, 2020
The developer went bankrupt. The judge was killed, officially for other circumstances, but… Now a new developer is appeared, the number of storeys will be reduced. Construction work will resume soon. One of the many trees that have grown over the years on the construction site, I offered to shelter in the botanical garden. This gesture could be a monument to all the trees and plants that occupy areas in the city that people have left alone but die when activity resumes. The Botanical Garden refused. They do not take "trees from the streets" I will keep this tree. Viacheslav Kryzhanovskyi, Species, Earthmate, Gryshko National Botanical Garden, Kyiv, 2020
Errors Viacheslav Kryzhanovskyi Set Art Foundation, Kyiv, 2019 Curator: Maria Vtorushyna The modern human emerges as a construct made up of a set of devices, with the body and mind forming only part of the structure. Most gadgets are not implanted directly beneath the skin, but they are so deeply woven into our lives that they have become new extensions of our bodies, without which we are left helpless. Very soon, our understanding of what a human being can look like on the outside will expand dramatically. We will gain the ability to modify ourselves however we wish. Today, we alter our bodies in an attempt to reproduce a unified ideal of beauty that caters to mass taste. Since the 1990s, however, artists have been exploring the potential of metamorphosis on themselves. ORLAN reshaped her face, bringing together the features of famous heroines from the history of world art. In addition to robotic extensions of his body, Stelarc implanted a third ear in his arm, grown artificially. Yet complete freedom of modification exists only in the virtual world, in the form of a game. Slava Kryzhanovskyi believes that this is more than a game: it is a rehearsal, a process of developing one's future avatar.
Viacheslav Kryzhanovskyi, Errors, digital painting, lightbox, 2019
Errors is a model for a museum that brings together visual documentation of unsuccessful modifications for further study. For now, the museum exists in the digital realm, since all the experiments take place in virtual space. Slava is taking the first step towards developing a prototype for a museum of the future, where human bodies that have yet to evolve will be displayed as outdated in comparison with new forms of biomodification. What will replace them? Faceted eyes, reflective skin, a titanium skeleton? It is only a matter of time and imagination. Viacheslav Kryzhanovskyi, Errors, digital animation, 3-channel projection, 2019
Maps of Identity: Hate Speech Antonina Romanova Set Art Foundation Kyiv, May 2019 Presentation of the foundation. Curator: Maria Vtorushyna Map of Identity / Hate Speech is a monologue performed by a naked person, exploring the loss of identity and an attempt to understand the roots of one’s own intolerance towards the identities of others. Antonina Romanova was born and raised in Crimea. Ethnically Russian and a Ukrainian citizen, Antonina is a director and performer who has worked with numerous theatres and is openly gay.
Antonina Romanova, Map of Identity/Hate Speech, Set Art Foundation, 2019
The performance was created as part of Maps of Fear / Maps of Identity, a Polish-Ukrainian laboratory for directors and playwrights. Originally lasting just three minutes, it has since undergone several changes and now runs for approximately one hour, with a single performer on stage. Antonina Romanova: “Next, I would like to ask you to describe how you identify yourself in a single word. It can be anything: your national or gender identity, social identity, religious beliefs, marital status, sexual orientation, professional identity, or simply how you see yourself. Anything you identify with. Take a moment to think before writing, and have a look at what others have written.” Antonina Romanova, Map of Identity/Hate Speech, Set Art Foundation, 2019
To Find and not Let Go National Museum Kyiv Picture Gallery, Kyiv, 2018 Volodymyr Melnytchenko, Ada Rybachuk, Vladyslav Mamsikov, Irina Gerasimova, Revaz Tchantouria, Leri Chanturia, Carlo Grigolia, Beso Grigolia. Curators: Maria Vtorushyna, Nino Chantouria The avant-gardes of Ukraine and Georgia were unable to fulfil their potential: after a brief flowering in 1917–1918, both countries were absorbed into the empire again. In the early 1930s, the USSR imposed “socialist realism” and established institutions to censor and supervise artists. In the 1960s, during the Khrushchev Thaw, visual art gained some freedom. Some artists explored their countries’ cultural roots through folk art, while others turned to modernism. Its ideas and styles allowed artists of the 1960s and 1970s to reflect on their contemporaries and the human condition. The artists represented in this project worked independently, without knowing one another, yet their inner worlds were remarkably similar. Their work expressed intellectual protest against the Soviet order, a search for comfort among like-minded people, and inspiration drawn from early twentieth-century literature and art. Turning to modernism and the avantgarde, they rejected the ideological constraints imposed on humanity and explored the individual, the spiritual, and the transcendental. Ukrainian and Georgian artists sought an alternative, quiet freedom attained through intellectual inquiry and knowledge. Ada Rybachuk, Nonna Hvatua — Chief Cardiologist of Ukraine. Сoauthored with V. Melnychenko, 1983, Ceramics, enamels, Height 93 cm. Image courtesy: Ukrainian Unofficial & ARWM Archive.
Brave! Factory Festival Kyivmetrobud factory, Kyiv, 2017 Artists: Clemens Behr, Oleksiy Zolotariov, Zbiok, Vitaliy Makoviy, Evgeniy Chernyshov, Normalna Grafika, Evgeniy Washcenko, Andrii Siguntsov, Kateryna Libkind, Konstantin Shakula, We Bad, Alina Kleytman, Yuriy Sivirin. Curators: Maria Vtorushyna, Andrii Siguntsov, Kateryna Ray, Daria Shevtsova. Clemens Behr, site-specific installation for Brave! Factory Festival 2017. Image courtesy Clemens Behr
Evgeniy Chernyshov, Enlightement, laser installation, interactive sound, Brave! Factory Festival, 2017
An idea to write the word “Brave!” on one of the 90 meters long roofs of the Kyivmetrobud factory brought the music team of the festival together. Now, what is going to happen when a huge industrial site welcomes dozens of ideas and becomes a place for electronic music acts, contemporary art installations and urban culture objects? Warehouses and machine halls were turned into rave spaces and galleries, walls became huge canvases, concrete platforms and unmapped coppices were transformed into concert stages and daytime dance floors. Elevators, traveling bridges, machines, old barrels and pipes were our balconies, cafes, stages, lounge zones and dating points. We united more than fifty cutting edge and legendary musicians, Djs and contemporary artists from around the world. The factory was brave enough to host all of these gifted and strong artists and help them in every possible way. The factory was even brave enough to cut production plans and just to do dancing with the visitors. Sleek: How Kyiv's burgeoning techno scene is giving Berlin a run for its money
Zbiok, site-specific work for Brave! Factory Festival, 2017
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