Museum of Modern Art in the Hlybochytska Street in Kyiv is a big art center. For three days it will host an exposition of Crimean painters called “Seaside Affair.”
Visitors got to the exposition through a corridor that was turned into an installation “The Crimean Hundred Meters” (art group REMIDIOS), where they would step on the sand accompanied by the sound of the wash and cry of seagulls from dynamics. Visitors had an access to a highlighted tablet so that they were able to draw on sand.
Chronologically, the retrospective opens with the seascape Moonlit Night drawn by probably the most famous Crimean artist of the present time Ivan Aivazovsky. Right next to it there are surprisingly exquisite, charming watercolors of another great Crimean artist Maximilian Voloshin: Dull Day, Pink Night, Koktebel, Koktebel. Bay, and In the Mountains of Koktebel.
A separate hall is dedicated to classical works of Soviet times – Valentyn Bernadsky, Mykola Bortnykov, Fedor Zakharov and Petro Stoliarenko. Paintings by young artists make up the biggest part of the exposition.
The organizers must have done a huge amount of preparations, but it should be noted, nonetheless, that quantity clearly conflicts with quality. Young Crimean artists tend to imitate and be like their famed predecessors. They do not dare explore new topics or artistic means. Some works would be better placed in a salon or a tourist gift shop rather than in the Museum of Modern Art. It sometimes seem that the art of the peninsula is frozen in the late Soviet era. Meanwhile, young Crimean painters who have a non-standard, original approach and personality, are not even close to imitating anyone or at least have a good taste for experiments, were left outside the Crimean Affair.
In general, despite this incompleteness the importance of the Art Map of Ukraine project is hard to overestimate. No big gallery in Kyiv is trying to present regional art, which is no less interesting than in the capital. The museum on Hlybochytska St. will do better with a more reasonable selection policy. We wish it success in its good cause.
