The “Art for Life” exhibition has brought together about a hundred works of 70 contemporary Ukrainian artists. Soon, the artwork will be put up for auction, and the proceeds will be donated for purchasing the equipment for the Ministry of Health Scientific Center of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery.
The project gathers art of different styles and genres: the abstract Serenity Garden by Tiberii Silvashi, Pavlo Makov’s etching from the “Utopia” series, the meditative Evening near Kaniv by Anatolii Kryvolap, the portraits from “Marshrutka Drivers” series by Yurii Pikul, miners’ portraits by Roman Minin, etc. “Pre-auction exhibition is a peculiar thing. There is no specific concept, under which the paintings has been brought together; its sole purpose is rather to present good artwork for selling. But in general, these artists provide a good image of a contemporary artistic process in Ukraine,” says Oleksandr Soloviov, Mystetsky Arsenal curator.
Matvii Vaisberg, a renowned artist, is also a part of the project. Once, the artist’s friends had held a similar auction in order to raise the funds for his treatment. “I am also a kind of a ‘victim’ of charity. I had been seriously ill in 1998, and my friends raised funds for my heart surgery. They organized a large charity auction and over a hundred artists donated their artwork – I didn’t even know some of them personally, so it was a kind of a shock to me. A majority of the works have been sold, and I got my surgery in Berne,” reminisces Vaisberg. The artist takes part in charity events often. To the “Art for Life” he donated the foggy landscape called A View from the Window.
The total cost of the artwork is estimated to be nine million hryvnias. One third of the proceeds will go to the artists, and the rest will be donated to children’s cardiology center for medical equipment. The organizers want to buy the EPIQ-7 cardiology ultrasound machine, as well as one unit for intensive care. Over the past ten years, the specialists of the Scientific Center of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery have operated over 16,000 patients, and mortality rate is one of the lowest in Europe. “The equipment we want to buy is worth more than 250,000 euro. Having been presented only past year in Amsterdam, this piece of technology is the most advanced ultrasound machine in the world. It will allow us to see the heart of a fetus while examining pregnant women and it will be a little breakthrough for Ukrainian cardiology,” says Illia Yemets, the scientific center’s director. The auction will be held on May 19.
