Events map: research on fermentation, experimental cinema, Chechushkova in Odesa, Maslov in Kyiv

Featured Art Events in Ukraine

"Sat On a Chair the Whole Night (382 Times, Maybe More)" by Daria Chechushkova

Dates: April 12, 2024 — July 14, 2024
Address: Odesa, Sofiivska Street, 5A (Odesa National Fine Arts Museum)
Operating Hours: Tue–Sun, 11:00–17:00
Ticket Price: 50/100 UAH

Organizer(s): Odesa National Fine Arts Museum
Curators: Valeriia Nasedkina, Volodymyr Chyhrynets

The theme of Daria Chechushkova's project is grief, niether personal nor collective but everyday hidden grief that remains with you as guilt or doubt and manifests through various symptoms and hallucinations. The exhibition's title refers to the artist's drawing, featuring a character tied to a chair while the room floods. This imagery symbolizes "inaction action," an activity arising from the inability to act and accompanied by confusion, apathy, and a dulling of self-preservation instinct. The curatorial text notes that these are taboo and unwanted feelings during wartime. In the exhibition, Chechushkova, following Francisco Goya's "Los Caprichos," records her observations in a series of etchings titled "Manual Before Confession" — an unfinished list of symptoms of helplessness.

Daria Chechushkova (1999) is a Ukrainian artist born in Odesa. From 2020 to 2022, the artist was part of an art community, living and working in the territory of Odesa Shipyard No. 2 (SRZ-2). After the start of the full-scale invasion, she relocated to Lviv, where she, along with other artists, rented a studio at another inactive plant.

"Wandering In Oneself" 

Dates: April 20, 2024 — May 19, 2024
Address: Lviv, Mitskevycha Square, 10 (Mercury Center for Intellectual Art)
Operating Hours: Tue–Sun, 12:00–20:00
Ticket Price: 160–550 UAH

Organizer(s): Mercury Center for Intellectual Art
Co-organizer(s): National Rehabilitation Center "Unbreakable"
Curator: Bohdan Mysiuga

The exhibition "Wandering In Oneself" focuses on individuals' resistance to political regimes and ideologies and on escape and recovery through art. It consists of four thematic blocks presented in separate rooms.

The block "A Person As a Cause Of Change" brings together prominent works of Ukrainian modernism, including "Madonna of the Red Viburnum" by Oleksa Novakivskyi and works by Mykhailo Andriienko-Nechytailo and Sviatoslav Hordynsky (brought to Ukraine from the USA). The section "A Man Protests" tells about the moral resistance of the Kyiv underground of the 1970s-1980s, namely the artists Mykola Trehub and Vudon Baklytskyi. This is the first joint exhibition of these artists in 13 years. "Calmness and Alienation" shows the history of organic abstraction in Ukrainian art (works by Fedir Tetianych, Andrii Saienko, Roman Zhuk and others). The last block — "Pain and Interaction" showcases the works of contemporary artists Tetiana Barabash and Yaryna Shumska. Their works on war, exhibited in Europe, will be shown in Ukraine for the first time.

"Saints" by Sasha Maslov

Dates: April 24, 2024 — May 29, 2024
Address: Kyiv, Reitarska Street, 21 (The Naked Room)
Operating Hours: Mon–Sun, 12:00–21:00
Ticket Price: Free admission

Organizer(s): The Naked Room
Curators: Lizaveta German, Maria Lanko

Sasha Maslov's solo exhibition presents works that are part of the photographer's eponymous book dedicated to people who have fought or are fighting for Ukraine's independence, freedom, and existence. The author says that choosing the title weighed heavily on him because Maslov does not believe that these people are saints. Not before God, but for someone, they indeed are saints and heroes.

"People portrayed in this book have made sacrifices, some willingly, some unwillingly. Many photographed for this book have killed. Many have saved lives. And the ones who killed saved lives by killing, too. Because this is how war works. War is not something to be celebrated. It’s not beautiful, or graceful. I don’t want to glorify war with this book, but I do want to pay tribute to the people who have put their lives on the line in order to give others a fighting chance at life," the artist explains.

"MEETING POINT" by Andrii Bludov and Oleksii Sai

Dates: April 26, 2024 — May 25, 2024
Address: Kyiv, Holosiivskyi Avenue, 86/1 (Imagine Point)
Operating Hours: Wed–Sat, 12:00–18:00
Ticket Price: Free admission

Organizer(s): Imagine Point
Co-organizer(s): Antikvar

The exhibition combines paintings by Andrii Bludov from the Urbanistics project, and Smokes, a series of installations by Oleksii Sai. Urbanistics, started in 2018, consists of abstract canvases depicting fantastic artificial structures — drawings of postmodern architecture. The series grew from the artist's admiration and astonishment with the idea that "humans have sufficiently detached themselves from the natural world, creating their own embodied space of existence."

Oleksii Sai began working on Smokes series 10 years ago, during the Maidan. "These are smokes. Smokes from flash-bang grenades at the moment of explosion, when everyone nearby is deafened… but now, perhaps, these are not the same smokes, but some others — in any case, it's 'something solid that shouldn't be solid." shares the artist.

"Behind the Lens: Culture Under Attack" photo exhibition 

Dates: May 4, 2024 — May 19, 2024
Address: Kyiv, Tereshchenkivska Street, 15 (Khanenko Museum)
Operating Hours: Wed, Fri–Sun, 10:30–17:00; Thu, 12:00–19:30
Ticket Price: Free admission

Organizer(s): Khanenko Museum, IMI (Institute of Mass Information)
Co-organizer(s): With financial support from the UNESCO Heritage Emergency Fund and the people of Japan
Curator: Port of Culture Agency

The exhibition, opened on May 3, World Press Freedom Day by UNESCO, presents over 6,000 works by 65 Ukrainian photojournalists about Russia's war against Ukraine and its impact on culture. These photos depict ruined church facades, broken windows of cultural buildings, destroyed theater ceilings, and the ashes of libraries. All these images capture the resilience of artists, cultural figures, and volunteers who continue to work in wartime conditions.

The exhibition also showcases artifacts from damaged cultural heritage sites depicted in the photographs. Bogdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum, where Behind the Lens takes place, itself suffered from Russian shelling in 2022. At that time, the museum and other buildings in the photos received emergency assistance from UNESCO.

"In Memory of the One Who Keeps the Memory" 

Dates: May 11, 2024 — September 8, 2024
Address: Lviv, Bohdana Khmelnytskoho Street, 124 (Jam Factory Art Center)
Operating Hours: Tue–Fri, 10:00–21:00; Sat–Sun, 11:00–20:00
Ticket Price: 100/200 UAH

Organizer(s): Jam Factory Art Center, Maria Lanko, Lizaveta German
Curators: Maria Lanko, Lizaveta German

Curators Maria Lanko and Liza German began working on this project four years ago and completed it before the full-scale invasion. In Memory of the One Who Keeps the Memory is a study of Ukrainian art that survived the collapse of the Soviet system and is now in the process of creating anew. The exhibition offers a different perspective on marginalized pages and historical figures of Ukrainian art, and initiates a dialogue with consonant but little-known practices of artists from Eastern Europe and Central Asia (from the 1950s to 2024). Key themes include memory preservation and reproduction; a critical look at the hierarchization and political construction of gender, national, and genre affiliations in oppressive systems (particularly the Soviet); reflections on displaced identities, hidden lives, and (artistic) means of returning them to the public domain today, and ultimately—the freedom of artists, relevant beyond time and geography.

The exhibition opening is on May 11 at 16:00. The full schedule of events can be found on the Jam Factory Art Center website. A charity collection for the Cultural SHOCK volunteer headquarters will be held during the vernissage. Entry to the opening is by a donation starting from 100 UAH (a screenshot of payment is required).

Jam Factory Art Center is a contemporary art institution in the revitalized neo-Gothic building of the former Jam Factory, which fully opened in November 2023.

Liza German and Maria Lanko are independent curators, researchers, and co-founders of The Naked Room Gallery (Kyiv) and the Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund. Since 2014, the duo has organized over 30 exhibitions and collaborated with leading art institutions in Ukraine, including the National Art Museum of Ukraine, Mystetskyi Arsenal, Goethe-Institut, the British Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Institute.

"Distancing": experimental cinema screening

Dates: May 11, 2024
Address: Kyiv, Bratska Street, 6 (Pererva)
Time: 16:00
Ticket Price: Donation from 50 UAH
Organizer(s): Intimate Cinema, Pererva studio

The screening, organized by the Intimate Cinema group and the Pererva studio, focuses on understanding the past, realizing the experience, and synchronizing with the present. The event will feature works by Daria Kovalchuk, Zoya Laktionova, Georgiy Gogatadze, Kateryna Konradova, Ayushi Alva, Alexandra Lyanna, and Sofia Levchenko. In their works, the authors contemplate distancing from terrifying or overwhelming reality and methods of returning from such "internal emigration."

"You Feed Them, They Feed You. Nothing Personal" by Olga Stein

Dates: May 12, 2024 — June 12, 2024
Address: Odesa, Sofiivska Street, 5A (Odesa National Fine Arts Museum)
Operating Hours: Tue–Sun, 11:00–17:00
Ticket Price: 50/100 UAH

Organizer(s): Odesa National Fine Arts Museum

Olha Stein's first solo exhibition is a laboratory-style showcase unfolding a unique experiment within the space of the Odesa National Fine Arts Museum. Here, the artist explores fermentation and its connection to social processes. On November 5, 2023, when a Russian rocket hit the museum, Stein realized the museum was a body of culture, art, and community. Here, she works not with funds and artworks but with the museum as a repository of art that requires protection, like any other body. The opening is on May 12 at 16:00.

Ukrainian Projects Abroad

"The River Wailed Like a Wounded Beast" in Berlin

Dates: May 4, 2024 — May 20, 2024
Address: Germany, Berlin, Mariannenplatz, 2, 10997 (Kunstraum Kreuzberg)
Operating Hours: Thu–Sat, 10:00–22:00; Sun–Wed, 10:00–20:00
Ticket Price: Free Entry

Organizer(s): Kyiv Biennial, Kunstraum Kreuzberg
Co-organizer(s): Visual Culture Research Center, Teiger Foundation, Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, Ukrainian Institute
Curators: Aliona Penzii, Stanislav Bityutskyi, Oleksandr Teliuk

The project explores the cinematic representation of the subjugation of the Dnipro River and the crimes associated with it by the USSR and modern Russia. Through the example of the construction of the Dnipro Hydroelectric Power Station cascade and its cinematic representation, the exhibition presents the dark side of Soviet modernization with its narrative of "conquering" nature, which finds continuation in modern Russian colonial ideology.
 

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