Kyiv’s Lavra Art Gallery has become the capital’s principal venue for art lovers, and has recently hosted two major cultural events.
The first was A Look at Art Nouveau exhibition, featuring modern Ukrainian paintings and prints. Although fascinating, an art exhibition is, after all, pretty much what you would expect from an art gallery. In contrast, the second event, the closing ceremony of the Kyiv in May art festival, was at points (literally!) explosive, shaking Lavra’s walls and the capital’s blasО theatregoers alike.
Both events, as all the other shows, concerts, and exhibits, were dedicated to Kyiv Day. Artists Oksana Berbeka-Stratiychuk, Mykhailo Huida, Andriy Zlobyn, Hanna Ipatieva, Ivan Kyrychenko, Svitlana Kondratenko, Liudmyla Korzh-Radko, Volodymyr Radko, Iryna and Maryna Rozuvanov, Iryna Ternavska, and Viktor Trubchaninov were all represented. All are proponents of the Cessationist style and used this to convey their symbolic greetings to Kyiv. (Cessation seems oddly appropriate as a name, given the approaching lull in the city as Kyivites flock to their summer dachas.)
“There is nothing coincidental about our choosing the title ‘A Look at Art Nouveau,’” stresses Oleksandr Bystrushkin, head of the city’s culture department, in the foreword to the catalogue published for the vernissage.
“After all, Kyiv’s image, the way its residents see it, also remains in the memories of visitors from around the world. It is closely connected with this style.” After the boom in sales of early 20th century art in the late 1980s, the interest in art nouveau gradually tailed off, and what remained devolved into what can be described as plain kitsch, or, being less critical, marginal artistic preferences. In fact, Lavra’s exhibit reflects the consequences of this fashion, too, as perceived and creatively transformed by artists. Even though a bit syrupy, the results of this reflection are digestible.
Striving to create a memorable end to Kyiv Day, festival coordinator Vitaly Malakhov gathered together a menage of elite creative forces at Lavra. The closing party began with an open-air performance of the Movement Academy Polish drama company. Their play, Spiritual Feasts, was a characteristically circumspect and graceful, albeit fundamentally provocative, rendition. Centred round a spirit-rapping sОance-cum-dinner party with four gentlemen wisely holding forth on various artistic, political and other ideas, the whole thing was brought to a shocking halt by a car bursting onto the scene.
The audience, slightly stunned, returned to the gallery to find themselves amidst a true carnival. The stage director’s spiel extolling the upcoming music and exotic folk numbers was fully justified. In bright contrast with the Academy’s avant-garde performance were virtuoso dances by the Alassia Cypriot theatre. And then, perfectly in the spirit of modern cultural globalization, the party turned into a collage of strange tunes, bizarre costumes and rites. The heady ringing number by the Indian dance group Ganeshsha Nataraja was accompanied by the antics of the Goninbayashi Japanese female clowns; the Northern European austerity of the Estonian company VAT combined with the Buddhist meditations of the South Korean group E-GA.
The audience’s enthusiasm was warmed even more by the long-awaited appearance of a jazz and blues group from Chicago. They finally appeared close to midnight and their performance was exceptional, bringing the motley theatergoing audience into a state of ecstasy. Young and old, Europeans, Asians, actors and businessmen all found themselves dancing. Kyiv in May enjoyed a truly spectacular finale. One can only wonder how Vitaly Malakhov will manage to top this festival next year!
