We have collected the most interesting exhibitions of spring that you can visit in Kyiv and Lviv: from a unique exhibition of Taras Shevchenko's graphics to a project about female artists of the Boychukism school.
“Spring. Female names of Boychukism”
Ukrainian House, from March 5
One of the main exhibitions of the spring is a project dedicated to female artists of the Boychukism school. The exhibition highlights the names of Oksana Pavlenko, Antonina Ivanova, Vira Bura-Matsapura, Sofia Nalepinska-Boychuk, Maria Kholodna, Yaroslava Muzyka, and other Boychukists — outstanding artists of their time. Boychukism appears as a multi-voiced artistic space in which women's contribution was of fundamental importance for the formation of a new visual code, say the project's curators.
The special role of the Boychukists also lies in preserving the tradition. After the mass executions of the school's artists during the Soviet terror, Boychukism was declared hostile, and its works were doomed to destruction. Archives were destroyed, murals were painted over, names disappeared from the public space. In this atmosphere of fear and total control, it was women who became the silent guardians of memory: Oksana Pavlenko, Yaroslava Muzyka, and Antonina Ivanova survived these years and preserved in great secrecy fragments of the artistic heritage of the Boychukists – sketches, works, memories, the very idea of the school.
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Group exhibition “Joy”
PinchukArtCentre, end of March
At the end of March, the PinchukArtCentre will present two new exhibitions — a large-scale group project “Joy”, in which Ukrainian and international artists explore one of the most important emotions that gives us strength in difficult times, and the Research Platform exhibition, which focuses on the works of Ukrainian artists of the 2000s–2010s who worked with the theme of corporeality (the body as an instrument of self-determination and resistance).
The exhibition “Joy” will also be presented as part of the parallel program of the Venice Biennale in May this year.
“Disparates. Francisco Goya Exhibition”
Khanenko Museum, April-June
This year, the world celebrates the 280th anniversary of the birth of the great Spanish artist Francisco Goya. To mark this date, a major exhibition will open at the Khanenko Museum, which will present the artist's engravings, as well as works by contemporary artists who enter into a dialogue with Goya, for the first time in Ukraine.
Exhibition of Ukrainian Illustration
Mystetskyi Arsenal, end of March – May
The exhibition is dedicated to the study of the subjects of Ukrainian illustration of the first third of the 20th century and their relationship with modern illustration and art. As one of the most accessible and democratic media, illustration made it possible to highlight important topics and talk about history, heritage and the future. It was the first third of the 20th century that became the starting point in this history – a period that largely shaped the face of modern Ukrainian illustration.
“HE: Taras Shevchenko. Artist”
Lviv, Zenyk Art Gallery, until June 20
“He: Taras Shevchenko: Artist” is a unique exhibition that allows you to get to know Shevchenko the artist better. The halls of the Lviv Zenyk Art Gallery have collected 58 paintings and graphic works from different periods. The exhibition project reveals Shevchenko not only as a classic of literature, but as a holistic artist of European scale – an innovator whose visual language resonates with modern artistic practices.
Exhibition by Pavel Makov
Andriy Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv, April
The National Museum in Lviv will present a large exhibition of artist and graphic artist Pavlo Makov in the spring. It will be a kind of continuation of the project that was presented in the winter at the Kyiv gallery The Naked Room; in particular, works from the “Abracadabra” series will be shown here. In this project, the artist captures the state after the completion of a large cycle, on which he has been working for the past 11 years, and the need to “negotiate” when the main thing seems to have already been said.
“Looking into the Gaps IV”
Lviv, Jam Factory Art Center, until May 17
This spring, Lviv's new Jam Factory Art Center will host an exhibition about loneliness during wartime, curated by artist Nikita Kadan. “Looking into the Gaps” is an exhibition series that offers a look at the history and present of Ukrainian art as a space of gaps, losses, and absences.
“The history of Ukrainian art is a torn history and at the same time a history of ruptures. Interrupted narratives, destroyed works, repressed authors, resounding silence, rewriting the past according to each new dominant ideology, tragedies of conformism and virtuosity of self-justification, breaking oneself through the knee, changing shoes in the air, changing one's name halfway, splitting the personality. Or martyred self-immolation with the subsequent transformation of ashes into bronze. And bronze, as is known, always steals its meaning from the ashes. Is it possible to wander through the landscape of catastrophe? Are there flâneurs in bloody lands? The answer of this exhibition is affirmative,” says Nikita Kadan.
Among the participants: Zhanna Kadyrova, Ksenia Hnylytska, Yuriy Izdryk, Oleg Holosiy, Yarema Malashchuk, and Roman Himey.