From 22 to 26, the Art Basel fair takes place at the Parisian Grand Palais, where Ukraine is the first to take part in history. The Kiev gallery Voloshyn Gallery and the French Galerie Poggi present a personal exhibition of the artist Nikita Kadan. The project traces the decline of modernism through the growth of secular violence and ruination, weighing against possible scenarios for the future of Ukraine.
Nikiti Kadan's exhibition at Art Basel 2025
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The key creation of the exhibition is “Shchekavitsa” – a vugile baby. It is likely that in 2022 there will be increased fervor in Ukrainian social media about an orgy being held in Shchekavitsa in the wake of a nuclear attack. Zgodom this zhart turned into a popular meme. The monumental work by Nikita Kadan depicts an obvious scenario of the realized “orgy on Shchekavitsa”.
Vugilny baby “Shchekavitsa”, 2025. Size: 300 x 385 cm
“Shchekavitsa revolves around the familiar plot of the first fate of a full-scale war about the planning of an orgy on Mount Shchekavitsa near Kiev in the wake of a Russian nuclear attack,” says the artist in a commentary on vogue.ua. – Detailed planning of the orgy groups in the telegram network, without media publications and thousands of memes, transformed the apparent phenomenon into a “spirit of reality”, a great act of collective creativity, dissolving catastrophic scenarios from the intense living of life. here-i-now. new and new menacing new things appear in the past: either from forgetting or from history.”
Sculpture “Gazelle II”, 2015 – 2025. Size: 185 x 45 x 85 cm
Also on display at the Ukrainian Art Basel stand are Nikiti Kadan’s robots documenting the war. These sculptures are ensign-shaped – “Gazelka” and “Gazelka II” (2015), created from the intricacies of a shotgun GAZ machine, found near Severodonetsk at the convergence of the region. Ten years later, on the fourth stage of a large-scale invasion, a metal kettle was added to another version, as well as imports from Ukraine, pierced by shrapnel.
The exhibition can be viewed at the stand of the Voloshyn Gallery and Galerie Poggi during the Art Basel 2025 fair.
