So, the Head of the Presidential Administration Borys Lozhkin will be at the helm of the council. His deputy in the AP Rostyslav Pavlenko; Vice Prime Minister Hennadii Zubko; former minister of culture Yevhen Nishchuk; media expert, member of the National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting Kateryna Kotenko; former MP Oleksandr Bryhynets; advisor of the president Ihor Hryniv; professor of Ukrainian Catholic University, historian Yaroslav Hrytsak; artists Ivan Marchuk, Pavlo Makov, and Oleksandr Roitburd; president of the National University “Kyiv Mohyla Academy” Andrii Meleshevych; theater director and producer, head of the Dakh studio theater Vladyslav Troitsky; and one of the wealthiest people of Ukraine, founder of art center Viktor Pinchuk will be his formal subordinates.
This council has existed for many years. The previous appointments were confirmed by Yanukovych in 2011, and no less interesting personalities were on the list: Ukraine’s ex-president Yushchenko, his brother Petro Yushchenko, former ministers of culture Mykhailo Kulyniak and Yurii Bohutsky, MP Hanna Herman, apparently, in the role of “the tsar’s eye.”
Natalia Zabolotna, director general of the state company “National Art and Culture Museum Complex ‘Mystetsky Arsenal’” noted in her commentary to The Day: “I really hope that the newly-created Council on Development of ‘Mystetsky Arsenal’ will help to develop it.”
However, Ms. Zabolotna was more restrained when it came up to concrete names: “Sure, we have some questions regarding the criteria according to which the list of the council members was formed, but on the whole we are bent to constructive cooperation.”
Of course, there are questions.
Since the very first day of its existence, May 22, 2006, our “Ukrainian Louvre” (“Ukrainian Center Pompidou,” “Ukrainian MoMA”) became an object of political games and some queer combinations, which has only an indirect relation to art. Actually, Mystetsky Arsenal was founded to satisfy the ambitions of the then president Viktor Yushchenko, who in the background of total failure with promised reforms sought to leave at least some trace in history.
The transfer of the premises of former plant for the museum was a political gesture, because this area in Kuchma’s time had been practically given to the son-in-law of the second president of Ukraine, Viktor Pinchuk, who has happily become a member of the Council this time.
After that any decision regarding the Mystetsky Arsenal, up to what repair to make, caused a stir, if not a scandal, nurturing someone’s PR campaign or spoiling someone else’s reputation. This reached an apogee on July 25, 2013, when during the preparation to the exhibit “Great and Grand” out of fear before the pro-Russian church of Moscow patriarchate and Yanukovych’s visit Zabolotna personally painted black Volodymyr Kuznietsov’s mural Koliivshchyna: Last Judgment and gave an order to withdraw Vasyl Tsaholov’s canvas Molotov Cocktail (though it didn’t save Yanukovych from these cocktails after all) from the exposition. On the following day deputy director general Oleksandr Soloviov and chief editor of the magazine founded by Zabolotna, Art Ukraine, Kateryna Stukalova submitted letters of resignation, and just before the entrance to the exhibit the police dispersed an innumerous picket of civic activists who were protesting against censure before the press and visitors of the vernissage.
As a result, after nine years of functioning Mystetsky Arsenal remains as far from being a Ukrainian Louvre as on the first day. Its greatest achievement is that a cosmetic repair was made and the building was furnished with sewer. The leadership complains all the time that it lacks money. And now they have got a queer council.
Let alone the fact that now it includes people who are inexperienced in the sphere of culture (Zubko and Lozhkin) or those who, mildly speaking, do not perceive actual art at all (I mean Marchuk), whereas, it will be reminded, Arsenal specializes namely in the actual art. Now an apparent conflict of interests has been added: when a founder of a competing structure who also claimed to the building of the Arsenal, Viktor Pinchuk, became a member of the administrative body. I would like to hear the opinion of Mr. Pinchuk: what his motives were when he agreed to this appointment, and it would be even more interesting to understand what those, who lobbied namely this lineup, were trying to achieve.
I can say with certainty: this new round of the games of patriots will hardly be helpful for the development of Mystetsky Arsenal.
