Kyiv is hosting an exhibit called Proshchavai, Zbroye (Farewell to Arms), organized by Viktor Pinchuk’s Ukrainian Contemporary Art Charity Fund. The project marks a new stage in implementing Mr. Pinchuk’s plan aimed at establishing Ukraine’s first contemporary art museum.
Arsenal, a major Soviet military production facility in Kyiv, located a short way from the famed Pecherska Lavra Monastery, was specially redone to accommodate an important project along the lines of Farewell to Arms. The exhibition room turned out to be packed with paintings, photos, statues, video works, and installations representing the authors’ creative efforts from 1987 to 2004.
The works on display represent some seventy well known, contemporary national artists, among them Oleh Holosiy, Arsen Savadov, Oleksandr Roitburd, Oleh Kulyk, Illia Chichkan, Volodymyr Budnykov, Serhiy Bratkov, and Vlada Radko.
Farewell to Arms is more than just another contemporary art project, not just a large-scale — if not the largest — presentation of current cultural trends in Kyiv over the past several years. This exhibit marks a very significant phase in the Ukrainian cultural scene, in that it is being held on the premises of what will become a Contemporary Art Museum founded by Viktor Pinchuk.
Mr. Pinchuk announced his intentions to found the museum last fall, during the First Collection exhibit at the National Artists Union, which served as a harbinger of Farewell to Arms — in terms of both versatile exposition, spacious premises, and the artists involved in both projects. This is perfectly logical, considering what Oleksandr Solovyov, the curator of both exhibits, had in mind, namely, to convey a comprehensive message portraying the history of modern Ukrainian art. Viktor Pinchuk’s Ukrainian Contemporary Art Charity Fund purchased a number of art works displayed in the First Collection (totaling 143 as of October 1, 2004). After laying the foundations of the museum collection, it was necessary to locate or build the right kind of accommodations.
The problem was solved in a totally unexpected, even amusing, manner. The site of Farewell to Arms, which is also slated to accommodate the Ukrainian Contemporary Art Museum, instantly reminds you of the contemporary art museum on the Arsenale grounds in Venice, where the legendary visual arts curator and theoretician Achille Bonito Oliva first came up with the idea of holding exhibits in the 1980s. The Italian premises are predictably similar to Kyiv’s Arsenal, in terms of architecture and especially its interior. This resemblance is sure to inspire Ukrainian artists and managers. At first, it is very difficult to visualize Kyiv’s Arsenal as a museum, what with its current layout as a huge hangar with a small number of isolated rooms (used as video art demonstration rooms during the last exhibit). However, the National Academy’s Contemporary Art Center’s experience shows that such projects do not require as much room for administrative activities.
In fact, Arsenal offers a vast space for exhibits, so much so that the project Farewell to Arms gives a fairly good idea about contemporary art in Ukraine. This task is sometimes difficult to solve in the Ukrainian capital’s exposition halls, whose owners and managers either lack the resources (including spatial and technical ones) to present topical creative ideas or rely only on their personal taste and affiliation with various artistic circles.
The people in charge of Farewell to Arms appear to have avoided most of these complications. For example, the exposition included Viktor Sydorenko, who presented his multimedia project Zhorna Chasu (The Millstones of Time), featured at the Venice Biennale last year. His absence at the First Collection was more than eloquent.
The Farewell to Arms opening ceremony was attended by practically all professionals who are active in the contemporary art domain, including artists, curators, critics, and gallery owners. Among the latter, one could not help noticing Vladimir Ovcharenko, owner of Moscow’s Regina Gallery, which owns the largest collection of Ukraine’s legendary postmodernist Oleh Holosiy (the Ukrainian Modern Art Charity Fund purchased twelve of his canvases). Viktor Pinchuk and Yevhen Marchuk attended the Farewell’s opening, which bodes well for the positioning of contemporary art with the modern Ukrainian elite.
Needless to say, Ukrainian art works dating from the 1980s and 1990s should be displayed in museums. A staggering number of such works, representing national contemporary art, have been acquired by foreign collectors and institutions, owing to lack of demand in Ukraine. At present, little is known about the fate of many of these canvases (each of which is an indisputable national cultural treasure). The creation of such a museum would undoubtedly help to organize and upgrade the artistic process. The opening of Arsenal’s doors marks one of the most serious achievements of Ukrainian culture during the years of Ukrainian independence, a period marked by personal responsibility and jockeying for a place in the world cultural context.
