The Palace of Arts is staging “Inspired by the Bard,” an exhibition of the well-known Lviv photo artist Yosyp Marukhniak, also a Den contributor, to mark the 202nd and 155th anniversaries of Taras Shevchenko’s birth and death, respectively. The photo exposition displays 45 pictures that illustrate the Shevchenko theme in the life of Leopolitan artists, sculptors, and actors, as well as academics, collectors, and all kinds of people who turn to the immortal figure of the Bard.
“Why have I taken up this theme? I want to show the way painters and actors view the figure of Shevchenko, interpret his motifs, and discover new phenomena,” the photo artist explains. “Another theme presented here is Shevchenko museums in Lviv and the Cherkasy region, his homeland. Very few know that there is the Taras Shevchenko Folk Museum in Lviv – it is a major cultural center that is doing very much to popularize the Great Bard. And, naturally, we show places associated with Shevchenko’s birth in the Cherkasy region and eternal rest in Kaniv.”
It is Yosyp Marukhniak’s fifth Shevchenko-themed photo exhibit. It presents pictures that never repeat themselves, and the memory of the artist and his computer still comprise enough works to hold more expositions.
“The Lviv oblast branch of the Ukrainian National League of Photo Artists is a role model for our colleagues in other regions. We top the lists, and our authors always win prizes at international salons. Yosyp Marukhniak is one of them,” says Vasyl Pylypiuk, also a well-known Leopolitan photo artist, a Shevchenko Prize winner.
“You’ve titled your exhibit ‘Inspired by the Bard,’ but, now that I have seen the pictures, I would add: inspired, led, and saved,” Hryhorii Shumeiko, People’s Artiste of Ukraine, an actor at the Lviv Maria Zankovetska Drama Theater, said to the author. “Some of these numerous photos are absolutely inimitable: for example, a little girl touches the image of Shevchenko. The author titled it ‘Touching Shevchenko.’ This touch is power, love, and salvation for each of us. Or take the photograph of youths sitting at the table in Shevchenko’s estate – this also symbolizes Ukraine’s great strength, victory, and future.”
The exhibit at Lviv’s Palace of Arts will remain open until April 20, 2016.
