UKRAINE! UNMUTED
the 5th triennial of contemporary Ukrainian art
UKRAINIAN CROSS-SECTION
Lviv, September 2023
LVIV POLYTECHNIC
“I would like to think about several past Cross-Section exhibitions and the actual one as gestures, not as statements or representations that “claim the truth”, but as a desperate desire to learn our own agency, to know ourselves.” Bohdan SHUMYLOVYCH, art historian (read more)
Yana BACHYNSKA, Kostiantyn ZORKIN, Zhanna KADYROVA, Alevtina KAKHIDZE, Myro KLOCHKO and Anatoliy TATARENKO, Pavlo MAKOV, Viacheslav POLIAKOV, Andriy RACHINSKIY and Daniil REVKOVSKIY, Serhiy SAVCHENKO, FANTASTIC LITTLE SPLASH, Vlodko KAUFMAN, Iurii SHTAIDA, Yaryna SHUMSKA
Ukrainian voices became better heard when people noticed the explosions and unmuted the sound. Today, the world has no right to ignore them, even though it is not in the rush to revise the colonial views on t ‘big’ and ‘small’ cultures shaped by the imperial worldview. Ukraine has been emerging from the shadow of empires long and painfully, and it is now that it has a chance to gain the coveted cultural voice and agency, which until now needed to be proved not only to the world,but also inside the country.
Art has always been responsive to such processes. In recent decades, Ukrainian artists have not only been reflecting on the shared state of uncertainty, insecurity, and voicelessness, but they also have been looking for different ways to find the proper words and the opportunity to speak up. The works presented in this project are a reflection of our feelings, perceptions, and rethinking, which brings us closer to understanding ourselves and helps to articulate it to the world.
Launched in 2010, UKRAINIAN CROSS-SECTION is a triennial of contemporary Ukrainian art. The initial mission was to present Ukrainian art to the world. Since then, the project has been implemented in Lublin, Wroclaw (the European Capital of Culture 2016), Kaunas (the European Capital of Culture 2022) and Lviv.
The 5th triennial was an attempt to capture what Ukrainian art looks like now, in times when the realities of Ukrainians are largely determined by the war, and the unprecedented aggression, the aggression the world hasn’t seen since World War II that is happening next to them and threatening them every moment.
Curators: Vlodko KAUFMAN, Sergiy PETLYUK
