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What is exhibited at the first exhibition of Ukrainian art, organized by Aspen Institute and Aspen Institute Kyiv

For the first time in the history of the Aspen Institute, the Aspen Meadows campus in Aspen, Colorado (USA) hosts an exhibition of Ukrainian art — “Beast of War. Bird of hope” (Beast of war. Bird of hope). The event was jointly organized by Aspen Institute (USA) and Aspen Institute Kyiv. The exhibition featured works by 11 contemporary Ukrainian artists and 2 works by Maria Prymachenko.

Through the prism of creativity, Ukrainian artists reflect on life in their homeland during the Russian full-scale invasion. Art conveys emotions that are difficult to express in words, especially in times of this brutal war. The works of Maria Prymachenko, which are presented at the exhibition, have never been exhibited in the United States before – “Beast of War” and “Bird”. These works were provided by Lidia Lykhach and Luke Knoll (USA).

Despite the full-scale Russian aggression and logistical difficulties, all works were delivered to the United States. The paintings will be exhibited in Aspen until the beginning of October. Works can also be purchased: either directly at the exhibition, or in the online store of the Aspen Institute (https://aspeninstitutestore.com).

What Kyiv was like in the first weeks of the invasion: photographs by Alexander Chekmenev

Photographer Alexander Chekmenev was born in Luhansk in 1969. At the age of 28, he moved to Kyiv. In the first weeks of the full-scale invasion, when the Russian occupiers were still around the capital of Ukraine, Alexander recorded the resilience, dignity, and humanity of the city’s residents. The series of works, filmed during February-March, has the appropriate name – “Citizens of Kyiv”.

A sous-chef and server at a Pizza Sushi 33 restaurant until late February, Kateryna Hryshchenko, 23, was also a champion bodybuilder and former basketball point guard. She reported to a military recruitment center a little more than 12 hours after Russia invaded, delayed only because she could not immediately find her passport. By 10 p.m. she was a soldier in the Territorial Defense Forces.

Chekmenev began his career as a photographer in the 1990s, documenting the economic and social crisis in Ukraine after the collapse of the USSR. In 2011, he released Donbas, a photo series exploring life in Eastern Ukraine. His photos have been printed in major publications including the New York Times, Time Magazine, The New Yorker Photo Booth, and The Guardian. He was awarded the Grand Prix Photographer of the Year of Ukraine 2013. In 2022, Chekmenev shot three covers of Time Magazine featuring Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska, and top Ukrainian media manager Olga Rudenko.

Kinder Album: expressing the feeling of the moment in a childlike way

Kinder Album (Children’s Album in German) is an anonymous artist living in Lviv, Ukraine. The Kinder Album art project first appeared on social networks in 2012. Its distinct feature is explicit photographs and drawings performed in a childlike manner, eliciting her pseudonym. Kinder Album is an active participant in group and solo exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad.

The day that Russia invaded Ukraine, Kinder Album, the pseudonym of an artist from the west of Ukraine, vowed never to leave her country. “I didn’t want to read about the war in the news,” she said, “I felt it was important to stay and feel all these events.

Maria Kulikovska’s performance: shouting on a mined beach among people

Artist Maria Kulikovska was born in Kerch (Crimea). After the Russian Federation occupied the peninsula in 2014, Maria did not return to her hometown. Before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the artist lived in Kyiv and Stockholm. Kulikovska is a winner and finalist in international competitions, she is well known for her performance with the Ukrainian flag at the Manifesta’10 biennial in St. Petersburg in 2014.

The exhibition presents documentary photos of the War and Pea€e performance, which took place in 2016 in Mariupol. The action took place on the mined Mariupol beach on the military border of the free city at the time and the temporarily occupied part of the Donetsk region. Maria Kulikovska screamed into the ground among the people who came to this beach to relax. On the other side of the Sea of ​​Azov, in the southeast, is the occupied Crimea. In her diary in 2016, Kulikovska writes:

— All this has been going on for 2 years, and people don’t seem to notice it, they are tired. They are tolerant of death, weapons, violence, and war. I also came to the beach, but to scream there. I looked at the sea, which is the border between my home and the war. I looked to the east and saw bombs on the horizon. I was scared, but my voice was so quiet compared to the laughter and screams of the children who were running around me and playing with each other on the shelled ground….

Video “I and Mariupol”: unfortunately, the miracle did not happen

Piotr Armianovski is an artist and documentary filmmaker from Donetsk. He was one of the activists of the Donetsk Euromaidan, but after the occupation of the city, he moved to Kyiv. In his work, Armianovski explores the themes of memory, loss, and social and symbolic constructions of everyday life.

In the video work “Me and Mariupol”, Armianovski wanders through the city of his childhood, contrasting the gloomy landscape with his desire for a “fairy tale” among the former symbols of power around Mariupol. No miracle happened. The Russians razed Mariupol to the ground. According to the data of the Ilyichevsk morgue, as of the beginning of September, 87,000 dead people were documented in the city. Like Donetsk, Mariupol is currently under the temporary occupation of Russia.

“World War 3” on book covers and art reproductions

Igor Gusev is an artist, poet, and author of performances, films, objects, and installations from Odesa. Before the full-scale invasion began, Igor had gained recognition for his stunning, dreamlike paintings. The beginning of a full-scale war caused the emergence of new dimensions of Gusev’s creativity.

At the exhibition “Beast of War. “Bird of Hope” presents the works of the artist from the “World War 3” series. The works are made using mixed media on book covers and art reproductions. For example, one of the works depicts Lenin’s mausoleum on chicken legs with the inscription “Russians are leaving”. Approaching the mummified past refers to the villain from Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga.

In one of the interviews, the artist said that he can be inspired by other interviews or comments on social networks for new works. And he calls the creation of such works the art of quick reaction: “When there are sirens on the street, it is very difficult to paint a painting. That’s why I practice the art of quick response: a book, five minutes, and we already have art.”

“Tolstoyevsky” by Oleksiy Say is an artistic comment on Russia’s weaponization of culture

Oleksiy Say is an artist from Kyiv. In the early 2000s, the artist started his original method of “painting pictures” in Microsoft Office Excel. Each fragment of such an image is a mathematical formula. The technique used by Say became the basis for the longer project Excel Art. Subsequently, the artist used elements of office life in his installations. Oleksiy’s works can be found in the collections of auction houses Phillips de Pury, ArtCurial, and private collections in Western and Eastern Europe.

Oleksiy Say created the posters presented at the exhibition after the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation. “Tolstoyevsky” is an artistic trailer

about the weaponization of culture by modern Russia and the hypocrisy of Russian leaders who profess the values ​​of “great Russian culture” but largely destroy Russian-speaking regions in the east and south of Ukraine.

The Russian invasion of Russia, documented in photographs

Efrem Lukatsky is an artist and photojournalist for the Associated Press. For 30 years, Efrem worked in areas of political unrest. His photos have been published in Time, Newsweek, New York Times, and The Guardian. And in 2005, Lukatsky became the only finalist in the history of modern Ukraine for the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. Today, Yefrem spends most of his time on the front lines documenting the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In one of Lukatsky’s photographs presented at the exhibition, a woman poses with a newborn baby in the basement of a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward. During air raids, this basement was used as a bomb shelter. The photo was taken on March 2 in Kyiv.

Daria Koltsova’s “Theory of Defense” — the closeness of war and the fragility of peace

Darya Koltsova is a Ukrainian artist and performer from Kharkiv. Since the annexation of Crimea and the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Donbas in 2014, Koltsova has focused on the consequences of war in her work and questioned the possibilities of protection and stability.

Daria Koltsova’s work Theory of Protection includes installations, performances, and videos that combine the political and the personal. Her work translates geopolitical struggles into an intimate perception of those at risk. Daria says:

— All over my country people are taping their windows to protect glass from shattering by the explosion.  These patterns on windows could be beautiful, but unfortunately, they are not decorations. We are taping windows to protect our bodies and sometimes even our lives. I started this art project in 2015 when I noticed such ornaments in occupied Donbas.Donbas. I was attracted by the people’s ability to create while facing deadly danger. And thus “Theory of protection” was born. Now I decided to continue the project to show how close war is and how fragile peace is.

From icon painting to depicting the horrors of Russian aggression: Danylo Movchan’s series of works “War in Ukraine”

In his career before the Russian invasion, Danylo Movchan focused on a contemporary rethinking of traditional Ukrainian orthodox icon painting. He studied at the Lviv College of Decorative Arts and later graduated from the Lviv National Academy of Arts. His works can be found in churches and private collections in Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Canada, France, Italy, Finland, and the USA.  Danylo Movchan tells about his works presented at the exhibition:

—I put off drawing icons…There is no peace in my soul to continue sacred creativity. From February 26, I began to experience our new reality in those works. Having done more than 70 works in the watercolor technique I try to reveal in them all my feelings and thoughts that are related to the difficult days of the Russian invasion.

The anti-war works of Maria Prymachenko were created a decade before the invasion

Maria Prymachenko is among the 12 artists whose works are presented at the exhibition. Prymachenko, who lived in the 20th century, understood her identity and felt the era. The artist talked about that time in the form of phantasmagorical creatures. Maria Prymachenko survived the Holodomor and Soviet terror. After the beginning of the Second World War, she lost her husband and left her creativity for a long time despite her first fame.

In the 70s, the artist created a series of powerful works with anti-war statements. Two works from this series – “Beast of War” and “Bird” – became the main decoration of the exhibition at Aspen Meadows and its leitmotif. These paintings are being exhibited in the United States for the first time. The “Beast of War” belongs to the private collection of Lidia Likhach. It never left the territory of Ukraine during the 50 years of its existence. “Bird” belongs to the private collection of Luke Knoll (USA). Previously, it was presented only in Toronto (Canada) in 2007-2008.

“Aqua” by Anatoliy Gankevich: beautiful and poetic Odesa despite the tragedy

Anatoly Gankevich began his artistic activity in the 1990s. His first video installation “Cleansing” is presented in the Marat gallery Helman in Moscow. From 1995 to 2005, Gankevich shot commercials and music videos, as well as created visual effects in the film industry. Since 2006, he has focused on painting, graphics, sculpture, and video art.

“Aquatoria” is the first film of the “View of the Sun” trilogy. It is dedicated to nostalgic memories, as well as Aqua, the element of water. The film is an artistic interpretation of the myth and realities of Odesa. Gankevich removed all parts of his film at dawn, creating a dreamy anthem about the birth of a day in a city that, after experiencing so many tragedies, has remained beautiful, poetic, and strong.

Olena Naumenko’s “Uncertainty” — how the war feels in the evacuation

Olena is a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine since 2008 and a member of the Yod art group. Her artistic practice is focused on the reinterpretation of classical painting and the transformation of the Ukrainian school of painting. After the birth of her daughter, Olena Naumenko began to work with the themes of motherhood and the role of the mother-artist in modern society.

The artist created the painting “Uncertainty.  Acrylic on canvas, 2022 Olena This painting was created for the exhibition at The Aspen Institute in June 2022. Special thanks to the artistic residency at Bałtycka Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej (Slupsk, Poland) where the artist has been staying as a refugee and creating her works after the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Olena Naumenko writes of her work: unbearable emotional pain every day a terrible dream from which it is impossible to wake up anger, tearing the heart rethinking life rethinking death rethinking the power of human capabilities rethinking the meaning of fate hope the desire for freedom above all all-encompassing love is a force overcoming any obstacle this is a war for me now”.

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