The rhythm is set by Veniamin Kushnir’s painting Scherzo, which is a multifigured composition combining struggle power, rapid movement, and sacredness. The exhibition’s curator Halyna Skliarenko’s assumption is that this work is now being exhibited for the first time. Scherzo is a semantic centerpiece of the project presented at the National Art Museum of Ukraine (NAMU) and organized in cooperation with the Ducat auction house. Today, according to Skliarenko, the picture has been filled with unexpectedly relevant content, as it interprets the history of Ukraine and its desire for freedom and independence.
Scherzo was found in a private collection. As the exhibition’s curator remarked, the main difficulties in its preparation had been generally associated with locating works. Paintings were provided for the project by collectors and various institutions, including the Museum of History of Kyiv and the Museum of the Sixtiers’ Movement, while some were found in the artists’ workshops.
TOTALLY DIFFERENT
What do you know about Mykola Trehub? A separate display of his works opens the “Another History” exhibition. Skliarenko calls the artist “a strange phenomenon of our time.” Born in countryside and lacking higher art education (the painter graduated from an art secondary school and an art studio at the Bilshovyk plant), he worked for a living at the Institute of Archaeology and painted on cardboard, masonite, even some rags, because as an unregistered artist, he found it hard to get the canvas and paint.
Wearing a gray jacket and an ushanka hat, Uncle Fedir tiredly stares somewhere, while an iconic image of Cossack Mamai is pictured in the background amid a red-colored vortex. The viewer looks into worried and serious eyes of Valentyna, painted with blue, light-blue, and gold, with a shape of a church, using the same colors, pictured behind her. Desperate and confused people, as well as churches as centers of compositions or background images, make up the main themes of Trehub’s paintings. Skliarenko told us that the artist had avidly read a book on the history of the 17th century Dutch painting, and even made a between the pages Ukrainian translation. “It would seem that if it was his favorite approach to art, he ought to somehow use it in his work. But his works are totally different,” exhibit’s curator remarked.
During the artist’s life, his works could be seen only at apartment exhibitions and other informal events. Trehub committed suicide at the age of 41, in the early 1980s. The Perestroika era saw a growing interest in the artist, and many of his works are now kept in private collections abroad, including the Zimmerli Art Museum (New Jersey, US).
THE DUST OF THE PERIOD
An important component of the exhibition is photography. Black-and-white photos taken by Iryna Pap, Oleksandr Ranchukov, and Viktor Marushchenko reflect Kyivan realities of the 1960s-1980s. Little Octobrists show off their badges at the Museum of Lenin, while a shot taken in the museum itself depicts numerous statuettes of Vladimir Lenin. Participants of a subbotnik clean up the city while covered by a cloud of thin dust, people queue at a market stand – these photos are both art exhibits and historical documents.
“Ukrainian art critics still ignore photography, although it is a major layer of our visual culture,” Skliarenko believes. “I would like to see these photos located in a museum, side by side with paintings, sculptures, graphics works. Besides, we already have a generation that does not understand the signs of everyday Soviet era. Also, these pictures offer the historical and social context showing the background against which our art was being created.”
NIGHT, LIGHT, AND MYSTERY. SERHII ODAINYK’S PAINTING SOUNDS OF SUMMER NIGHT
This art is very variable, but quite often it deals with the value of personal experiences, freedom, and individuality, like in Alla Horska’s Angry Taras or Serhii Odainyk’s lyrical Sounds of Summer Night. “I think one of the trends that defined the period between the Thaw and the Perestroika was a kind of return to art,” Skliarenko thought aloud. “Under Josef Stalin, everything had been deleted and banned, the very idea of art and artist had been reshaped. Thus, starting with the Thaw, we saw a return to creativity, to the quest for modern artistic language.”
TRAGEDIES AND HOPE
The creators of the “Another History” exhibition seek a fresh look at the complexity and contradictions of art in the second half of the 20th century. “Dividing it into official and unofficial streams is not working anymore. Many artists who worked in the so-called official stream were also doing a completely different art on the side,” Skliarenko stressed. “Tetiana Yablonska actually did no socialist-realist painting after Bread. Meanwhile, Viktor Ryzhykh’s Relics of Brest is a very decent work, though it is as official as they come. Everything is connected!”
TETIANA YABLONSKA’S WINTER IN OLD KYIV, CREATED IN 1976. HALYNA SKLIARENKO NOTED THAT THE ARTIST HAD ACTUALLY DONE NO SOCIALIST-REALIST PAINTING AFTER BREAD (1949)
The “Another History” exhibition once again exemplifies the need to create a museum of contemporary Ukrainian art, which would have collected works from the postwar period until today before they are irrecoverably dispersed around the world. “What happens with the works of an artist after their death is a difficult and tragic story,” Skliarenko admitted. “For example, Trehub’s family has kept some of his works, and sent others to the Zimmerli Art Museum. Meanwhile, the late artist Khomkov had no family. I knew him personally, saw his works, but I do not know where they are now, so we need to look for them at his friends’ homes. The future museum will need to engage in such activities, to archive and collect artworks.”
The NAMU’s new project also calls for a discussion about artistic processes of the second half of the 20th century. The organizers intend to hold a roundtable with art critics and meetings with artists. In addition, “Another History” is covered in a special issue of the magazine Antykvar, and the exhibition’s catalog will be launched soon. Skliarenko summed up: “We must show as much art as possible today, to fully reconstruct the artistic process and neutralize many myths.”
So, you are welcome to discover or rediscover legendary figures of Ukrainian culture at the exhibition “Another History: Kyiv’s Art from the Thaw to the Perestroika,” which will run at the NAMU till October 30.
